Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse

Debate between Sarah Champion and Jim Shannon

Wednesday 22nd May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sarah Champion]

The hon. Gentleman makes profound points that go to the nub of the argument. If survivors had confidence that the system would support them, I genuinely believe that they would come forward earlier. Early intervention is key—having a few sessions where people are listened to and fundamentally believed, and can then continue with the rest of their lives.

What tends to happen, however, as the hon. Gentleman has alluded to, is that survivors do not have that trust, so it can take decades for them to come forward, if they ever do. As a result, the spectre hanging over them infiltrates every aspect of their life. A trigger can be anything—the same aftershave that their abuser was wearing or a feeling of being enclosed in a space—so unless we address the actual issues and recognise that these people are victims of crime, they will not be able to lead their full lives and reach the potential that we all deserve to achieve.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for securing the debate and for her work on the subject across the House, in Westminster Hall and in the main Chamber, for which we greatly respect and are proud of her. I met a lovely lady who was repeatedly sexually assaulted in the worst imaginable ways. To say that she still bears the scars is an understatement. The support for her, and too many others like her, was not in place when it should have been. That failure has to stop. Does the hon. Lady agree that the time has come for us in this place to step up and do right by those who have been so terribly wronged? The system needs to be there at the beginning, and now, when they need it most.

[Sarah Champion]

I completely agree with those sentiments. It is a blessing that MPs such as the hon. Gentleman fight for people when they need it, but it should not come down to an MP fighting for an individual. They pay their taxes. We have a duty to support them. That support should be accessible to everyone as an automatic right.

Survivors told our inquiry that the impact of trauma caused by childhood sexual abuse is not widely recognised by professionals, which can make it hard to get the support they need. One survivor described visiting a GP as

“a lottery as to which kind of help they will get”

and said that there is a

“lack of diagnosis and failure to understand the significance of the disclosure…many survivors are misdiagnosed with lower level issues such as anxiety and depression.”

Survivors feel that the effects of the abuse are not well known in the NHS. Frontline staff are not equipped to deal with disclosures, and they do not have the knowledge to direct survivors to appropriate treatments. It is telling that, although 89% of survivors said that their mental health had been negatively affected by abuse, only 16% said that NHS mental health services had met their needs. Another survivor told our inquiry:

“I’m a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and of the mental health system.”

Recent studies have found that a wide range of social and environmental factors increase the risk of mental ill health, including growing up in poverty, early separation from parents and experiencing sexual abuse as a child. Professor Richard Bentall at the University of Sheffield has argued that the evidence of a link between childhood trauma and a future psychiatric disorder is at least as strong as the evidence of genetic causes. Solid evidence also shows that adverse childhood experiences can affect the brain structure, which then affects a person’s sensitivity to stressful situations and causes fluctuations in mood throughout adulthood. That has significant ramifications for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

Survivors of childhood sexual abuse have two cards dealt against them. Because the trauma of the abuse increases their risk of developing psychiatric disorders later in life, their risk of experiencing adverse conditions as an adult also increases. The findings of that research were borne out by our surveys, which demonstrated survivors’ experiences of poor relationships, unemployment and financial hardship.

Survivors need the professionals they interact with, whether they are child protection social workers, jobcentre work coaches, GPs or judges, to be curious about the circumstances that led to their current predicament, rather than just dealing with the presenting symptoms. Survivors told the inquiry they want frontline professionals to ask not, “What’s wrong with you?” but, “What happened to you?”. That professional curiosity will allow survivors to build relationships with professionals that are oriented to meeting their needs. It is key to achieving quality support and, ultimately, securing justice. Will the Minister commit to developing guidance and training on trauma-informed practice for frontline professionals, in conjunction with the specialist voluntary sector and his colleagues across Departments?

Survivors told the APPG that the support they found most important to their recovery is specialist voluntary sector counselling and therapy; I will shorten this to “specialist services” for the rest of the debate. Specialist services provide a range of options tailored to meet the needs of the survivor, including counselling, support groups and advocacy. Survivors say they value these services for a wide range of reasons: the services provide them with support regardless of whether they report to police; they are met by knowledgeable staff in a welcoming, non-clinical environment; and the staff recognise that there is nothing intrinsically “wrong” with them and that the issue is the effects of the trauma caused by the abuse.

We need to continue to develop what we know about child sexual abuse, its links to mental illness, and the most effective forms of support and therapies for survivors. The APPG wants the National Institute of Health Research to commission studies into effective therapies for survivors of abuse and I urge the Minister to support us in that aim.

The inquiry heard that specialist services face unprecedented demand without a related increase in their budgets. SurvivorsUK reported a 30% year-on-year increase in people attempting to access its services in each of the last three years. In 2017, the National Association for People Abused in Childhood—NAPAC—answered 8,500 calls and emails on its national support helpline, but that is less than a tenth of the 90,000 inquiries that it received that year.

Children’s Social Care: Rotherham

Debate between Sarah Champion and Jim Shannon

Tuesday 5th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Champion]

Sadly, my right hon. Friend is absolutely right. This was a multi-agency hub for survivors, and the council argued in the strongest terms the need for such multi-agency working, as did the National Crime Agency, but no, the money has not been forthcoming.

Operation Stovewood has placed unprecedented and unbudgeted additional pressures on the authority. The council estimates the investigation is currently costing an additional £4.3 million per year, which is estimated to increase to £7 million next year, yet only £500,000 per annum of additional money has been forthcoming. The decades of sexual abuse in Rotherham and other towns have been a great shame on this nation. If there had been an earthquake affecting the lives of 1,400 children in Rotherham, we would have got emergency funding from the Government to help with their recovery. However, with no such money forthcoming for child abuse, we are largely leaving victims and survivors to get on with the recovery themselves.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

May I first put on the record our thanks to the hon. Lady for all that she does in this sector? It is a very difficult sector to work in—it is very difficult to put forward the stories she puts forward—but she does it admirably well. I think this House is indebted to her, and in particular her constituents should be very proud to have her as their MP.

Does the hon. Lady not agree that social services throughout the United Kingdom are teetering on the brink of collapse? While we are debating this issue in this Chamber, there are children throughout the United Kingdom right now who are sitting in neglected homes, with no one to turn to and no hope as they slip through the net. Does she not believe that it is past time that we secured—we look to the Minister very gently and very honestly as we say this—the additional funding and training to enable the system to handle the vast volume of children who need someone to advocate for them as they scream in silence?

[Sarah Champion]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kind words, and I completely agree with the points he makes. We are storing up a national disaster if we do not support these children, ideally with early intervention, or with whatever help they need throughout their lives. I ask the Minister: please will he agree to invest additional resources in supporting looked-after children and care leavers—yes, in Rotherham, but also across the country—so that they can get the proper support they need to repair their lives?

Rotherham council is doing the very best it can. Ofsted gave Rotherham high praise in its 2018 inspection report, which I would like to quote. It said:

“Improved identification of risk and continued focus on uncovering and tackling complex abuse have led to increased demands on social care. A recent increase in the numbers of children looked after has placed additional demands on placements. Some of this increase is due to improvements in identifying risk, and to the local authority’s complex abuse work.”

It went on to say that the council had plans in place to address the demand:

“They are not complacent in the approach they take in order to better understand, continue to identify, and address the large-scale serious abuse suffered by children and young people. Managers, leaders and partners are diligent in their ongoing efforts to expose both current and historic exploitation. This is seen in the number of successful prosecutions and ongoing court trials of perpetrators. Support to encourage children and young people who have suffered abuse helps them to feel safe enough to disclose their experiences and continues to develop. This includes services for those who are now adults. The stringent efforts of the local authority and partners to confront large-scale exploitation and abuse will continue to have its challenges, as victims continue to be identified.”

I agree with the Ofsted report.

The council has committed to implementing successful evidence-based programmes and has invested nearly £1 million of its own funding in innovative programmes alone. Recent analysis found that its expenditure on children’s social care has increased 90% between 2010 and 2016, compared with an average of 30% for other English local authorities. But the flip side of providing the level of care needed is the amount of extra funding for children’s social care services that the council has had to find to meet escalating demand. The council increased the children’s services budget by £20 million in 2016-17, but as demand continues to increase further, Rotherham borough council forecasts an overall £16 million overspend for children and young people’s services for the current financial year. That leaves the council yet again in the position of having to find even more funding from its own resources, and it is further increasing the children’s social care budget in 2019-20 by a net £7 million, making a total annual investment of £27 million over and above the 2015-16 budget.