Harmful sexual behaviours  program of work

These placement guidelines outline a set of placement principles and considerations designed to guide decisions and support planning for children and young people who have displayed harmful sexual behaviour in care settings. Developed to ensure safe, trauma-informed, and developmentally appropriate placements, the document emphasises a strengths-based, individualised, and culturally responsive approach to care.

The principles aim to balance the safety and wellbeing of all children in the placement while recognising the unique needs of each child and young person. Key considerations include developmental appropriateness, safety planning, family and community connection, collaborative care teams, and avoiding unnecessary placement disruptions. These considerations have been developed into a Support Tool which can be used by practitioners to guide their exploration of placement options and consider what additional supports may be required when placing a child or young person who has displayed harmful sexual behaviours, particularly where the placement may not be an ideal match.

Practice Guide: Care Arrangement Considerations

Practice Guide: Placement Considerations and Planning Support Tool

Word Editable version: Placement Considerations and Planning Support Tool

This practice guide presents the Layered Therapeutic Assessment and Treatment Mapping Approach for understanding and responding to harmful sexual behaviours displayed by children and young people. Developed for frontline practitioners, it provides a structured, trauma-informed framework that incorporates five key layers of assessment, covering developmental, contextual, and behavioural factors, to guide case formulation and treatment planning. The guide emphasises a holistic and culturally sensitive approach, encouraging the use of therapeutic relationships, comprehensive information gathering, and flexible, tailored interventions. It aims to support accurate assessment, enhance safety, and improve therapeutic outcomes for children and young people who have displayed harmful sexual behaviours.

Practice Guide: Layered Therapeutic Assessment and Treatment Mapping Approach

Funded by the Department of Communities WA

Developed with consultation across the Department of Communities WA, the Framework demonstrates the expert operationalisation and conceptualisation of core concepts related to harmful sexual behaviours and the current models including frequency, persistency, consent, and contexts.

The Framework organises its guidance across four pillars:

• Shared knowledge

• Continuum for understanding

• Progressive responses

• Principles of practice

Download the Framework (2022)

Funded by Department of Communities WA

In progress

ACCP is undertaking a co-design process, drawing on service models, literature on evidence-based assessment and treatment models, and ACCP's own team's practice expertise to develop a specialist service for responding to harmful sexual behaviours, to be delivered in the south metropolitan area in WA.

This special review included an externally published rapid review and jurisdictional scan of evidence-based therapeutic care models for residential care, with additional consideration for children and young people who have displayed HSB and for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children.

Read the review

This practice paper critically examines the challenge of selecting a fit-for-purpose tool to assess for and contribute to understanding of risk for children and young people who have displayed harmful sexual behaviours. Given the enormity of the impact of these behaviours, and the currently estimated prevalence, this area of practice continues to expand and evolve. However, practitioners and front-line workers often find themselves feeling ill prepared to make thorough assessments of risk of harm, not only to the child or young person displaying the behaviour but to other children.

When assessing risk and complex behavioural or mental health concerns we often turn to structured tools or protocols to guide and inform our thinking and ultimately decision making. The area of understanding risk in harmful sexual behaviours is no different. Blending practice-based wisdom and evidence-based literature, six key elements have been identified to help guide practitioners to select the right fit-for-purpose tool to support assessment of children and young people who have displayed harmful sexual behaviours.  These elements aim to provide guidance to practitioners to inform decision making about tool selection, ensuring that tools are fit-for-purpose, particularly when considering the application within the complex out of home care context, and with children and young people.

Read the Children Australia article

This scoping review, conducted by the ACCP, examined existing tools used to assess harmful sexual behaviours in children and young people, with a focus on their suitability for use in Australian OOHC settings. The review identified 29 assessment tools but found none fully appropriate for the Australian OOHC context without adaptation. Four tools showed promise but would require further evaluation and modification.

The review highlights significant gaps, particularly regarding cultural sensitivity for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, consideration of diverse abilities, and the inclusion of both online and offline behaviours. It stresses the need for trauma-informed, culturally safe, and developmentally appropriate tools, as well as the importance of critically evaluating tools before implementation to avoid harmful outcomes. Overall, it underscores the urgent need to develop or adapt harmful sexual behaviours assessment tools specifically for the Australian OOHC context.

Read the Scoping Review

Harmful sexual behaviour is associated with significant risks and adverse pervasive impacts for children and young people. For children and young people who have displayed harmful sexual behaviours, enhancing safety in the short-term and long-term and promoting wellbeing is critical. However, while there is extensive knowledge regarding risk assessments and safety management within the child protection space, there is a paucity of guidance about creating intricate and in-depth safety plans, especially in the out of home care context. As such, the aim of this scoping review was to inform the development of safety plans, both short-term and long-term, within the out of home care context. A systematic search consisting of 16 papers and practice/policy guides was undertaken and identified three main themes: enhancing acute short-term safety, enhancing long-term safety and building strengths, and principles/processes to consider.

This review provides a glance into the myriad of factors to consider in both short and long-term safety plans such as interpersonal relationships, cultural connection, social media, and placement dynamics. The results pinpoint the need for safety planning to be collaborative and advocates for children and young people to be involved. Whilst this scoping review highlights the factors and processes to consider in safety planning around harmful sexual behaviours, it sheds light on the need to consider not only the child or young person but the contexts and systems around them. Future research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of safety plans and associated processes that can promote wellbeing.

Read the Scoping Review: Journal of Child Sexual Abuse