Project aims

Learning Together aims to enable children’s safe and ethical involvement in research addressing child sexual abuse globally.

The project grew out of recognition of the many barriers preventing children and young people’s safe and meaningful involvement in research addressing sexual abuse (and other forms of trauma) and the appetite for resources and learning opportunities to build researchers confidence and capacity to address these gaps. We recognise that without children’s engagement in research, their experiences, insights and perspectives are unable to inform the future of practice and policy to address child sexual abuse.

The project aims to support young survivors and other children or youth to have positive opportunities for their views and experiences to be safely and meaningfully integrated in sexual abuse research globally – supporting the realisation of their participation and protection rights, and improving the research evidence base.

The outcomes our project aims to achieve:

• Children and youth have safer, more meaningful, opportunities to contribute to sexual abuse research and have their welfare and rights better attended to within this
• Children, youth and those supporting them, are resourced to make more informed decisions about engaging in sexual abuse research
• Children and youth have the opportunity to contribute to professionally-dominated debates about the safe and ethical involvement of children/youth in sexual abuse research
• The research community (researchers, and those who commission/oversee research) have a better understanding of children/youth’s rights to contribute to sexual abuse research, and the value this adds
• Researchers have increased understanding of, and tools to support, trauma-informed research, and develop more reflexive research practices through peer support and mutual learning

Project background and rationale

Whilst there is growing recognition of the need for involving children and youth in research about violence and abuse - and a number of ethical guidelines and toolkits helpfully guide thinking on this (see for example, Jamieson et al, 2021 or ECPAT, 2019) – there remains a need for competence and capacity building around the practical, trauma-informed, application of ethical principles when involving children and youth who may be viewed as vulnerable in research (Beazley et al, 2009; Bennouna et al, 2017; Wessells and Kostelny, 2021). This includes youth survivors, and other children and young people who wish to contribute to research on sexual abuse.

What gaps does Learning Together seek to address?

• Risk-adverse approaches from commissioners or ethics review boards
• A tendency to wait until youth are post-18years before engaging them in sexual abuse research
• Inadequate recognition of how participation (including in research) can be both protective and empowering (Hamilton et al, 2019; Lansdown, 2020; Bovarnick and Cody, 2021; Willow, 2021)
• Insufficient opportunities for researchers to share their real life ‘behind-the-scenes’ learning and wrestle with complexities and challenges together
• The fact that many researchers are operating without access to peer support
• The absence of child and youth perspectives within debates on this topic

“It seems to be placed in the ‘too hard’ basket often and attempts are not made to engage children and young people.” (respondent Learning Together Survey, 2022)

Establishing the need for support: Findings from the Learning Together Survey

We carried out a survey in autumn 2022 to explore the challenges researchers face around this and what would help them. 85 individuals from 25 countries took part and shared their views. Respondents included employed researchers (from academic and practice backgrounds); practitioners engaged in undertaking research; and PhD researchers. Their responses have shaped our project.

[Who took part infographic]

The two barriers to involving children in sexual abuse research cited most frequently by those who hadn't yet done so were:

• Additional legal or safeguarding implications of involving under 18s
• Difficulties getting governance or ethical approvals

The top six challenges mentioned by those who had involved children in sexual abuse research were issues to do with (*in descending order from most commonly mentioned):

1. Access and facilitating agencies or gatekeepers
2. Participant safety and wellbeing
3. Gaining consent from children and parents
4. Ethics – including challenges with ethics committees
5. Managing disclosures
6. Inadequate support services or structures to support children

Read a full outline of the research findings [PDF]