Norfolk Child Sexual Abuse Snapshot survey

Norfolk County Council (NCC) is working with the NSPCC to review the county-wide response to Child Sexual Abuse (CSA). We held a multi-agency snapshot discussion on 19 March 2025 where service leads from the multi-agency safeguarding partnership shared their experiences and insights around CSA in Norfolk. More details about the snapshot can be found in the NSPCC information sheet below.

As part of the NSPCC Snapshot work there is a survey to be completed by professionals who work with or support children experiencing CSA. This survey will help to expand the evidence base and will inform the NSPCC's analysis and recommendations, which will help NCC to improve the Norfolk response to children experiencing sexual abuse.

The link to the survey is https://forms.office.com/e/PtsCMzHmxR.

The deadline for completion is 11 April 2025. Overall findings will be included in the NSPCC report and recommendations in May 2025.

System-wide Child Sexual Abuse Snapshot

Improving the CSA offer for children and families

"The devastation and harm caused by sexual abuse cannot be overstated - the impact of child sexual abuse, often lifelong, is such that everyone should do all they can to protect children." (IICSA, 2022)IICSA's findings demonstrate the urgent requirement for an integrated approach into how child sexual abuse is tackled across the UK.

Experiencing child sexual abuse (CSA) can have a devastating and long-lasting impact on a child's wellbeing that can last into adulthood. Although the nature and extent of the impact of abuse can vary significantly between individuals, we know that when a child experiences sexual abuse they're at an increased risk of adverse outcomes in many areas of their life, including physical, emotional and mental wellbeing, relationships, socioeconomic outcomes and vulnerability to revictimization. One of the objectives of the Home Office's Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy (2021)is to ensure that all victims and survivors of sexual abuse are able to access timely, consistent and high-quality support services that are appropriate to their needs.

To support areas in understanding the gaps and opportunities across the breadth of their local CSA offer; a System-wide CSA snapshothas been developed. The snapshot gives opportunity for your multiagency strategic safeguarding teams to reflect on current roles and responses to CSA - review their own activities and impact in contributing to a local CSA response - whilst coming to consensus on areas of strength and areas for future improvement.

Following the successful pilot of NSPCC's innovative system wide approach, we are delighted to have been awarded funding from the Home Office Support for Victims and Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (SVSCSA) fund towards delivering services and training partner organisations across England and Wales. This will enable children and families to recover from the impact of CSA, and strengthen multi­ agency responses to CSA. This means that limited funding is available for the NSPCC to provide the System - wide CSA snapshot, Developing an Understanding of CSA Training and LTFI service to regions who may be interested.

What does the System-wide CSA snapshot do?

The snapshot aims to support the strategic planning of safeguarding partners through facilitating multiagency discussions on key aspects of local CSA responses and wider service provision.

Strategic planning is supported by frontline insights and a snapshot report that includes recommendations on the areas for improvement and opportunities. The snapshot supplements local quality assurance, audit and gap analysis activities by highlighting the interconnectedness of the CSA system and providing a forum for local partners to come to consensus on the level of evidence and progress in each of the core CSA system areas.

To develop the snapshot, the programme team have drawn on the findings of the Joint Targeted Area Inspection report, the recent Home Office CSA strategy and learning from the NSPCC HSB audit. Key partners such as the CSA Centre for Expertise, and NSPCC CSA therapeutic service teams have also contributed their unique insights to the development of the snapshot to ensure it is fit for purpose.

How does the System-wide CS snapshot work?

The snapshot consists of twenty-two statements across the five domains that cover the essential elements of a well-functioning and integrated CSA response system:

• CSA Awareness
• CSA Prevention
• CSA Protection: Initial response
• CSA Protection: Effective assessment
• CSA Recovery support

Multi-agency partners work together to reflect and respond to the statements. This is done through discussion in a strategic session facilitated by a member of the NSPCC team.

This strategic session isn't the only activity that will feed into the summary report; practice voices are proportionately included in the reflective snapshot process. An online version of the snap to gives frontline practitioners an opportunity to share their views and experiences.

The NSPCC will take the information from the discussions, along with responses to the online practice survey, and create a "system-wide" snapshot report that includes a summary of key points, CSA system 'RAG rather' and recommendations for next steps.

Benefits

• To help local areas understand the strength of current CSA recovery service provision.
• A detailed snapshot audit report is produced outlining audit scores, strengths, weaknesses and relevant recommendations to improve local responses and support children, their family and wider community/society.
• The snapshot fosters and facilitates multi-agency collaboration with a system-wide approach.
• Identifying good practice locally empowers those teams and allows for local expertise to be identified and shared.
• Supports joint action planning.
• Clear, concise evidence of the need locally, and of current provision means areas are better able to allocate resources where they will have most effect.

Any questions?

If you have any questions or would like to discuss how to progress with a snapshot, please email the programme inbox csaawareness@nspcc.org.uk.

Also visit the NSPCC website for information about the snapshot.

NSPCC Learning contact info

• Web: nspcc.org.uk/learning
• Tel: 0116 234 7246
• Email: learning@nspcc.org.uk