Anti-Traumatisation

Removal of children from abusive situations is both a proper and responsible action to be taken by anyone with statutory responsibility for the protection of children, especially where child sexual assault may be involved. In the eyes of the law, the abuser, as an adult, is innocent until proven guilty and hence is permitted to remain in the family home unless the non-offending parent takes some action to remove them. As a result the child, the victim, has to be removed as protection against further assault.

These children are then isolated from their home to further protect them, but at the same time they are sometimes removed from the non-abusive parent, any siblings, local friends, school and school friends, supportive teachers and significant others who should maintain their relationships as part of the healing process.

Ideally any child should be placed as close as possible to their natural home environment, attend the same school, maintain the same friendships with other children and significant adult contacts. The schools responsibility and that of others would be to ensure that non-contact is maintained with the abuser. How one does this without ‘publicising’ the childs problem is a dilemma that will have to be addressed?

Removal in our present system almost exclusively means exclusion from everyone known and trusted by the child where in reality there need only be separation from the abusive adult/s. How can we expect any child to feel safe and secure in the unrealistic and traumatic environment in which we place them.

Some that I have known and worked with state that they feel that they are the one at fault by the way they are treated, especially so when accommodated in so-called ‘safe environments’ that actually resemble detention centres and who have similar policies and procedures. Before it was closed down as a ‘safe environment’ the Departments facility for these children, those that could not be immediately placed in foster care, maintained the illegal policy of locking all external doors and windows to prevent children from absconding.

If such an environment is said to be a ‘safe’ for children then why the need for such security measures? In a sane world we do not lock up the victims, hence the similar insanity in detaining refugees.

What we need to do is maintain effective contact with everyone in the childs realm with supervised visits home being made a regular occurrence and maintenance of contact with extended family and significant others encouraged. Supervision in this context would only be a precaution against the child coming into contact with the offender and not a check on the morals or behaviour of the rest of the family. I would even suggest that the child be allowed to spend time overnight with non-abusive parents and siblings whenever the abusive adult is not present.

This traumatising process is a hindrance when it comes to the counselling of victims, much the same as the protocols for ‘notification’ of any child who presents for sexual assault counselling.

One thing I learnt in my short sojourn into working with sexually abused children some time back, was that they must feel as though they are free to say what they want and confident that you are not going to go running off and blabbing to someone they don’t know about their most intimate disclosures as is required with the ‘team’ approach of the department.

The system of group confidentiality within agencies, whilst a good practice to be encouraged, must be tempered with the fact that informed consent must be obtained from the client before disclosure to others and not to be bandied around over a cup of coffee at lunchtime with other staff members.

The legal process is also demeaning, embarrassing and traumatic. One particular case on which I worked involved three victims of the same perpetrator. The fact that I could only work with one who did not have DoCS support meant a positive outcome for him, whilst the other two who did have DoCS support were worse off.

Over the two and a half years the case ran DoCS did not appear once, nor did it provide CSA counselling, legal representation or even transport to and from court. My client won his case because he did receive all the necessary support and several years later also won a case for compensation. Some improvements have been made to the legal process over the last few years but DoCS processes it seems have improved very little.

The one problem with this de-traumatisation process is that it will make it much easier for children to disclose and to receive counselling but with CSA services already thin on the ground we may not be able to handle the surge in demand.