Audit tool for assessing child sexual abuse prevention content in school policy and curriculum

Although audit and feedback has not been well-used in social research, it is a useful method by which to answer research questions concerned with the notion of "best practice", for example, whether a policy or program meets a required standard or benchmark. This paper draws on educational research conducted for a 5-year nation-wide public inquiry: the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse. The research comprised an audit of the strength and comprehensiveness of child sexual abuse prevention education policy and curriculum in 32 Australian school systems. The paper describes the development of the audit tool including its conceptual background, step-by-step process for identifying and synthesising evidence to generate the audit criteria and descriptors, and an explanation of how the tool was used. It also presents a succinct protocol for the research method, and critical commentary on the strengths and weaknesses of audit and feedback for social research.