Developing quality standards for community-based online child sexual exploitation and abuse interventions

Area of Science:

• Public Health
• Criminology
• Social Work

Background:

• Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (OCSEA) presents a significant challenge to law enforcement and requires effective prevention strategies.
• Limited evidence exists for successful OCSEA prevention, highlighting the need for community-based solutions.
• Quality standards can provide a framework for measurable community prevention efforts against OCSEA.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate how police, partner agencies, parents, and children address OCSEA.
• To develop the first quality standards framework for preventing OCSEA offline within local communities.
• To establish co-produced priorities for OCSEA prevention.

Main Methods:

• A locality-based mixed-methods study was conducted in one English Local Authority.
• Engaged over sixty participants, including children, parents, social workers, police, educators, and health professionals.
• Utilized desk research, analysis of police case files (N=185), interviews (n=18), focus groups (n=11), observations (n=2), and co-production workshops.

Main Results:

• A whole-system approach is essential for communities to manage OCSEA, as it cannot be solved by police or online services alone.
• Inconsistent responses and OCSEA perpetrated by children pose challenges for practitioners, children, and parents.
• Eleven response priorities and six quality standards for OCSEA prevention were co-produced, emphasizing the need to amplify the voices of children and parents.

Conclusions:

• This research introduces novel quality standards for preventing and addressing OCSEA.
• The developed framework offers a blueprint for adaptation and implementation in other localities within and beyond the UK.
• Community empowerment and co-production are key to tackling OCSEA.