Guest blog by Amy Adams & Kieran McCartan.
Sibling sexual behaviour and abuse (SSB-A) is an emerging research area in the field of preventing and responding to harmful sexual behaviour (HSB) in children and young people (CYP). Over the last five years the authors have been involved in several research projects (including the first government commissioned national sibling sexual abuse project for the Home Office with SARSAS, Purple Leaf and Dr Sophie King-Hill from the University of Birmingham)have worked with a number of national and international organisations (#SiblingsToo and Thriving Survivors) and have published with others on SSB-A (including but not limited to Dr Sophie King-Hill, David Russell, Dr Peter Yates and Stuart Allardyce – for a list of relevant publications please see the resource and the UWE repository). Over this period, it has occurred to the authors that while the research and evidence base on SSB-A is emerging and has long been central to the work of many professional organisations and frontline services, these services rarely carry out research or collate an evidence base on their practices and outcomes relating to SSB-A. This is mainly because frontline services lack time, resources, funding and research experience to carry out this work alongside their practice. To support services/organisations/professionals who want to become more outcomes focussed and evaluate their work regarding SSB-A, the authors using internal impact related funding from UWE, have developed a research and evaluation framework for SSB-A.
The research and evaluation framework has been developed and is underpinned by the authors’ research experience and knowledge of the area of SSB-A, as well as the extensive research and evaluation carried out by them in the field of sexual abuse. The framework provides the current research context of SSB-A and states why we need a better practice-based evidence base, before highlighting the most effective methodologies for doing this and how they can be best understood, interpreted and evidenced by practitioners. The framework is underpinned by a wellbeing and trauma-informed approach and a public health and development perspective. Moreover, as SSB-A is a family systems issue it needs a family systems response, especially if uncovered or disclosed in childhood, as such the framework addresses and centralises a ‘whole family’ perspective.
Given the complicated nature of reporting and recording data on SSB-A, whether the behaviour and abuse was disclosed and reported in childhood (therefore framed as harmful sexual behaviour (HSB) and an ongoing child protection issue) or in adulthood (as a victim services issue as well as potentially a criminal justice issue), evaluating the topic can be challenging. The framework offers insights to collecting and evidencing outcomes for five distinct but interrelated populations:
- Children and young people (CYP) who has been harmed
- CYP responsible for the harm
- Parent and carers of CYP impacted by SSB-A
- Adults who as children were responsible for harm
- Adult victim-survivors of SSB-A
The framework also provides examples of the research questions, data that needs to be collected for each of these groups, providing worked examples and data collection tools and analysis guidelines. It is hoped that this framework will be of use to practitioners in developing their own evidence base in SSB-A and that this in turn will feed into academic research as well as improving commission, evidence-based practice and improve outcomes for everyone impacted by SSB-A.
The framework is a free resource and can be found on the UWE website.
- The SSB-A Practice Outcomes Framework (full version)
- SSB-A Practice Outcomes Framework (briefing paper)
If you have any questions or comments, please contact the research team (Kieran.mccartan@uwe.ac.uk or axa1895@student.bham.ac.uk).
Amy and Kieran would like to thank New Wave , especially Jessica Jolliffe and Kaela Earl-Tester, for all their work on the production of the final document.