National review webinar series - Workshop 2

“Safeguarding partners should undertake a multi‑agency training needs assessment, to ensure that their practitioners are able to fulfil their roles and responsibilities in this area. This should include the achieving best evidence joint training.”

National review into child sexual abuse within the family environment (2024)

About the workshop

This workshop is part two of six online sessions to support safeguarding partners to reflect, plan and lead the implementation the recommendations for safeguarding partners in England set out in the 2024 National review into child sexual abuse within the family environment.

The workshop is focused on Recommendation two, for safeguarding partners to undertake a “multiagency training needs assessment” to ensure that professionals can effectively respond to child sexual abuse. The recommendation also says that, after the assessment, partnerships may need to run multi and single agency training initiatives and should additionally give specific attention to the role of education settings and how they can identify and help children affected by child sexual abuse

During this session

This workshop will discuss the findings from the report that led to this recommendation, specifically on how professionals can be confident to spot the signs and indicators of child sexual abuse and respond appropriately, and what training and development leaders need to ensure is in place to enable them to do this.

This session will also support you in carrying out a multiagency training audit, ensuring your training meets local needs and ensure professionals can fulfil their roles and responsibilities. This includes a specific focus on support for education professionals and exploring achieving best evidence joint training. During the session you will learn about CSA Centre resources and training, and will hear from reflections from practice as they begin on this journey.

About the speakers

Anna Glinski is the Deputy Director for Knowledge & Practice Development at the CSA Centre and heads up the Practice Improvement Team, leading our work creating practice resources, devising training and advising individuals and organisations on how to improve their response to child sexual abuse.

Lorraine Myles is the CSA Centre’s Practice Improvement Advisor for education and is a qualified teacher with almost 30 years’ experience in education, from key stage one to four. Starting out in mainstream schools, Lorraine moved into the special education sector where she worked extensively with children and young people who experienced abuse and trauma.

What is the National review into child sexual abuse within the family environment?

In 2024, the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel published their National review into child sexual abuse within the family environment, conducted by the CSA Centre. It studied the experience of 193 individual children and uncovered significant and longstanding systemic issues in the identification of and response to child sexual abuse in family settings. Sadly, the review found that children who are sexually abused are frequently not being identified by practitioners, nor are they receiving the response needed for their ongoing safety and recovery.

The final report, "I wanted them all to notice": Protecting children and responding to child sexual abuse within the family environment, made 10 recommendations for national government and a further six recommendations for local safeguarding partnerships which they can implement immediately without waiting for changes at a national level.

About the workshop series

This is part two in our Strengthening multi-agency leadership in responding to intra-familial child sexual abuse series of workshops. Each free session takes a closer look at the recommendations of the National review into child sexual abuse within the family environment. Throughout the year we are holding five more workshops covering topics from improving professional knowledge, skills and practice, to how to talk to children about sexual abuse.