Speakers
Deborah Denis
The Lucy Faithfull Foundation is a child protection charity dedicated to preventing child sexual abuse before it happens. As CEO, Deborah is focused on advancing the Foundation’s vision of a world free from sexual abuse and exploitation. Deborah plays a key role in advocating for a greater focus on preventing abuse before it occurs and sits on a variety of groups and boards including the National Crime Agency’s Prevent and Protect and Prepare Boards, and IICSA Changemakers. After leading the Foundation’s communications and fundraising functions for a number of years, she took over as CEO in February 2020. Deborah has 20 years’ experience in media, communications and fundraising and since becoming CEO has successfully grown and expanded the Foundation, as well as support for many of its projects and services.
About the Lucy Faithfull Foundation
The Lucy Faithfull Foundation is a UK wide child protection charity that is unwavering in its commitment to preventing child sexual abuse and exploitation. We are in a unique position because we are one of only a few organisations tackling the root causes of harm by working with those perpetrating abuse or at risk of doing so. We run the Stop It Now! helpline, the largest helpline of its kind in the world for people concerned about their own sexual thoughts and behaviour towards children and anyone concerned about child sexual abuse, and we support more than 8,000 callers who make more than 16,700 calls each year. Annually, we assess risk in hundreds of adults and adolescents and provide groupwork interventions to several hundred more. Where abuse has occurred, our teams advise statutory agencies on case management and provide intervention programmes to rebuild family safety. Our preventative work includes early intervention programmes for families considered at risk of harm and public education. We also work to prevent harmful sexual behaviour among young people through our work in schools and our programmes designed for young people themselves. And we deliver training across the UK and the sector, reaching more than 2,000 frontline workers a year, including those in law enforcement, education and social care. Our mission is simple – to prevent child sexual abuse. It is this mission that draws all of our varied services together because child sexual abuse is preventable, not inevitable.
Title: A public health approach to preventing child sexual abuse and exploitation
We all have a part to play in preventing child sexual abuse and exploitation but, to date, the tendency of governments and safeguarding agencies is to concentrate efforts and resources on tertiary prevention activities, which is to say activities that respond when abuse is revealed or reported. Such responses are invariably too late for the victim/s concerned - however adequately the authorities respond, and however efficient the procedures that are followed. Efforts need to shift upstream, adopting a public health approach and taking a secondary and primary prevention focus wherever possible. Such prevention strategies and activities have the advantage of offering considerable economic savings, aside from the intangible but morally imperative benefits of reducing suffering. This session will explore the need for an overall strategic vision which embraces primary, secondary and tertiary prevention. It will look at how those on the frontline can support such a vision by reviewing the prevention landscape and presenting tools and resources that are currently available for parents and carers, professionals and young people themselves to implement prevention activities. It will consider how these tools and resources fit into the public health framework and can enhance your practice on the ground. We hope that you will come away from this session with a clear understanding of how your practice fits within the public health framework and the role you can play in preventing child sexual abuse and exploitation.