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How children disclose abuse
Disclosing childhood sexual abuse is often a long and challenging process. Many barriers can make it difficult for children to speak up, including personal, family, and systemic factors.
Children who cannot clearly talk about their abuse may show physical, emotional, or behavioural signs of distress and trauma.
Research shows that younger children (up to around 14 years old) are most likely to tell a parent or a parent-like figure first, often their mother (Manay and Collin-Vezina). They may also tell other family members, such as siblings or grandparents.
As children grow older, they are more likely to confide in friends, before telling a parent or teacher. Friends may then share the disclosure with an adult because they are concerned for their friend’s safety.
Attention
Practice prompt
The process of disclosing child sexual abuse shows that a lack of disclosure to child protection or police does not reliably indicate whether abuse has occurred.
Child protection assessments must also consider what the child has shared with other sources to determine if abuse is likely to have happened.
Complicating features of disclosure
Children will often disclose sexual abuse in ways that create complexity for adults understanding their experiences. Accidental, partial and tentative disclosures, as well as recanting a disclosure, all create complexity in child protection practice.
The nature of memory, child development and trauma commonly result in disclosures that are inconsistent, vague or confusing for adults to understand. Memory coding, recall and retention can be impaired by trauma and impacted by child development.
These factors can be misunderstood to suggest a child has made a false disclosure, however, they are all expected features of memory and sensory development.
Practice prompt
| Disclosure feature | Description | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Accidental or partial |
Sexual abuse is revealed by chance rather than deliberate effort or intention. Only partial information about sexual abuse is disclosed until/unless the child is confronted with evidence or cause to support a more complete disclosure. Accidental or partial disclosure is the most common form of initial sexual abuse disclosure. |
Talking about playing a game not previously understood as abusive. Asking questions about sexually abusive behaviour. Engaging in harmful sexual behaviours. Talking about feeling uncomfortable, unsafe or unsure with specific people, or in specific places. Ambiguous disclosures of touching that may not be perceived by others as sexual in nature. |
| Tentative | A vague or vacillating acknowledgement of sexual abuse having occurred without outright denial or recantation. | The child discloses abuse, however, later says:
|
| Recantation | Retraction of a previous disclosure made formally and maintained over a period of time. | The child says they were confused or misremembered the abuse. The child says someone else forced them to make the disclosure. |
Non-verbal disclosure indicators
Children who have been sexually abused can experience a range of physical, behavioural and emotional symptoms, including significant changes in a normal development, behaviour or demeanour, that may indicate trauma and sexual abuse (Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse).
Children are more likely to disclose sexual abuse when they have safe, trusting relationships with others, such as friends, family members, or other adults. If trusted adults notice changes in a child’s behaviour and gently ask what’s wrong, it can encourage the child to open up.
Indicators can be grouped into physical, behavioural and emotional indicators (Righthand, Sanderson) and these are explained in the table below.
Note
Many of these indicators may have several potential sources, including other forms of abuse or neglect, and general developmental disruptions.
These indicators are insufficient independent grounds to form the assessment sexual abuse has occurred. However, when combined with other factors such as disclosure to a trusted adult, or unsupervised access by a known child sexual abuser, the full context of available information may suggest sexual abuse is more likely than not to have occurred.
| Physical indicators | Otherwise unexplained:
Medical findings confirming child sexual abuse are rare. Most children who disclose penetrative sexual abuse do not present with symptoms of genital trauma. |
|---|---|
| Emotional indicators | Sudden or unexplained onset of:
|
| Sexual behavioural indicators | Behaviours on their own or with others that include:
|
| General behavioural indicators | Sudden or unexplained onset of:
|
Practice prompt
Recognise and normalise common features of disclosure, including delay, denial, tentative and partial disclosure and recantation to avoid misguided conclusions disregarding a child’s attempts to disclose.
Consider the full scope and context of information available when determining whether a disclosure of sexual abuse reaches the threshold to substantiate harm.
Consider all reliable sources and indicators of abuse in the absence of a direct and clear disclosure to child protection authorities or Police.
Barriers to disclosure
The Australian Child Maltreatment Study identified nearly half of the participants who identified experiences of child sexual abuse had never disclosed (Mathews et al. (a)).
Children are most likely to disclose sexual abuse when the perceived benefits of telling outweigh the potential risks, and when they feel safe enough to do so. Their perception of safety and the potential outcome of disclosure is often heavily influenced by intentional sexual grooming tactics used by abusers to prevent the child being able to tell safe, protective adults.
In addition to manipulating the child and their family to create conditions in which the abuse can occur, adults who sexually abuse children use a range of tactics to trap the child in what is commonly termed ‘post abuse maintenance’. These strategies often include:
- persuading the child that the behaviour is ‘normal’ or acceptable
- telling the child not to tell anyone what happened
- encouraging the child to keep secrets
- making the child feel responsible for the abuse
- threatening the child with abandonment, rejection, or the breakdown of their family
- using rewards, bribes or the withholding of punishment in exchange for the child not telling (Winters and Leglic).
Characteristics within the child’s family and community may also create additional barriers to disclosure. Many of these may be created, manipulated or exacerbated by the abuser.
Further, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children may face additional barriers including:
- lack of cultural safety
- racism and discrimination contributing to mistrust of authorities
- shame related to cultural abuse and sense of brings shame to broader community
- language barriers
- impacts of intergenerational trauma, colonisation and fears of being removed from their family (Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse).
For some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, and children from other linguistically diverse families, English may be their second or third language. They may face barriers to being able to clearly disclose abuse in the language of the person receiving their disclosure.
Barriers to disclosure
Many children who are sexually abused are both sensitive to and feel responsible for the needs of their family. The often feel profound concern and responsibility for what might occur if they disclose abuse, including the possible consequences for the person who abused them. It is crucial that child protection practitioners seek to understand the worries children have about the outcomes of their disclosure and make all reasonable efforts to help children understand and overcome these concerns.
‘Yeah because she might care about her dad and she doesn’t want to get him arrested because it’s her dad and she won’t get to see him again for ages, like a year or something. So she might want to still see her dad but she won’t be able to if he’s arrested. So that would make it even harder because it’s family’.
Female, 11 years (Warrington et al.).
Practice prompt
The absence of a disclosure to Child Safety or Police is an unreliable indicator of harm or risk in circumstances where a child has disclosed sexual abuse to other trusted adults.
Child protection assessments must assess and consider barriers to disclosure in order to facilitate the best possible opportunity a child to disclose.
Helping children tell
Attention
When children’s disclosure of sexual abuse is within one year of its occurrence and they engage in in-depth discussions about its impacts, they are less likely to experience negative psychological outcomes in adulthood (Winters and Leglic). This reinforces the importance of creating safe and supportive environments that encourage children to disclose their experiences of abuse.
The following conditions support children to talk about their abuse experiences:
- knowledge about what constitutes sexual abuse
- having the language to talk about what has happened to them in ways adults will understand
- being directly asked about sexual abuse concerns
- access to someone who will listen, believe and respond appropriately
- knowing how to access help
- having a sense of control over their anonymity (not being identified until they are ready) and confidentiality (controlling who knows)
- effective responses by adults in both formal and informal contexts.
Provide a child with multiple opportunities to speak, ideally with the same Child Safety Officer in a low-stress, comfortable environment to create an environment where the child feels safe to make a disclosure (Goodman-Delahunty et al.).
Practice prompt
Talk to with the child to help them understand what abusive behaviours are. These conversations also model the language to talk about abuse experiences.
Include talking about Child Safety’s role, current concerns, what will happen next, who else will be told about any disclosures, and what they will be told.
The following resources can help guide these conversations:
Supporting families after sexual abuse disclosure or discovery
The discovery of child sexual abuse is an extremely complicated and challenging time for the child and their family. Responses by (non-offending) family members often occur along a continuum of belief and fluctuate due to external and internal influences (Humphreys).
Family members may go through a process of belief and require compassion and grace to help them keep their child safe. Support for the non-offending family members to contain and manage their expressions of disbelief or denial is crucial to supporting the wellbeing of the victim.
The response of a child’s non-offending parent is the most crucial factor in the child’s post-abuse healing trajectory and can help to guard against long-term negative outcomes (LaTreill).
Attention
Many non-offending family members will feel shame or guilt, leading to their own mental health vulnerabilities.
Provide links to mental health supports for family members.
These resources can be used to support non-offending family members’ response to the disclosure:
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