Managing incidents of sexualised behaviour - guidance for education 2023

Overview

This guidance has been written to support Education staff across Devon with their decision-making process and how to manage incidents of sexualised behaviour presented by a child or young person in their education setting.

This guidance does not override current Devon Safeguarding processes and if you believe a child or young person is, or likely to be, at significant risk of harm please make an enquiry via Devon – Children’s Social Care.

This guidance should be used alongside other key government guidance including:

Sexual behaviour should be handled like any other behaviour problem – calmy and firmly unless there is information to warrant an immediate referral to the police and / or Children’s Social Care. If you become aware of an incident of sexually concerning behaviour, whether it is the first incident or one of a pattern, the following steps should be taken:

Stop the behaviour – move the child / young person away from the others to speak to them.
Describe the behaviour – describe the behaviour accurately to avoid any misunderstanding. For example, ‘You pulled down X’s pants in the playground’
Point out the impact on others – For example, ‘When you pulled down X’s pants, they were embarrassed and upset.’
Remind the child / young person of the normal expected behaviour – For example ‘private parts should be kept covered and not shown in public’ or ‘ no one should be touched particularly on their private parts without their consent.’
Consider if any medical treatment is required.
Record the incident on internal Safeguarding records – describe the behaviour, who was involved and location of the incident. Include any actions taken and outcomes. Ensure to reference any documents used to assess the associated risks.

Assessing the level of risk

As a Devon education setting you have full access to the AIM Project checklist. The purpose of this checklist is to help in your decision-making process and to decide the level of risk associated with the displayed behaviour.

Once you have decided on the level of risk associated, you can decide on the next steps to support everyone involved including both the victim and instigator. When considering specific incidents please consider alleged instigator (s), victim(s) and any bystanders that may have witnessed the incident (this may be a child or an adult). Please also keep in mind that alleged instigators can also be victims of harmful behaviour, education settings must take this into account when making referrals and putting support in place.

Devon Safeguarding Children Partnership (DSCP) have purchased a five-year license so that multi-agency partners can access the AIM checklists.

The AIM Project recognises the importance of education, health, police, children’s Services, and anyone working with children and young people, having clear pathways for responding to children and young people exhibiting harmful sexual behaviours.

The AIM checklists help to put sexual behaviours in perspective and to identify children and young people that need short interventions and those which require further assessment.

There are four separate checklists that cover:

adolescents.
adolescents with learning disabilities.
children under 12 years old.
children under 12 years old with learning disabilities.

To access the checklists and resources, you will need a username and password. You can request a log-in username and password by completing this short form. Practitioners can then access the checklists by logging into the AIM Project website.

It is important that you watch the AIM project training session (1 hour) which is available on the AIM website prior to using the AIM checklist for the first time.

Please ensure that in addition to the AIM checklist you are also using the DSCP Level of Need framework.

If you feel a child may be a victim of child sexual abuse, use this Signs and Indicators template to further explore any concerns. The template is designed to support multiagency working and can be used as a dynamic template and added to when concerns change. This template can be used at an education level, and alongside Early Help plans or alongside social care enquiries.

Responding to risk

Once you have used the AIM checklist to assess the level of risk, you must decide on next steps to take depending on the identified level of risk associated with the behaviour.

As well as responding directly to any associated risk, ensuring to consider any victims, instigators and bystanders, education settings must consider if a referral to the Local Authority under the Bullying, prejudice and racism incidents pathway needs to be undertaken.

For more information please visit: Devon BPRI resource.

The behaviour will be assessed as one of the following areas:

Normal
Inappropriate
Problematic
Abusive or violent

Normal sexual behaviour

For behaviour that is assessed as ‘age and developmentally appropriate’ for the child or young person, it is important for education staff to reinforce this behaviour as normal and healthy.

Children and Young people should be provided with robust and age-appropriate Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) throughout the academic year. This education should complement other safeguarding, welfare, pastoral education provided to children and young people periodically throughout the year.

All children and young people should be aware of how to report worries and concerns both in school and outside of school. There are lots of useful resources available to education settings when teaching children and young people RSE, some of these resources can be found in the resource section of this guidance.

Inappropriate sexual behaviour

For behaviour that is assessed as ‘age and developmentally inappropriate’, you should manage these incidents using your own Safeguarding and Child protection policy, alongside your behaviour policy. It is important that all inappropriate sexual behaviour is recorded on the child’s safeguarding file to help build a picture and to identify if a child’s sexual behaviour is becoming more concerning over time.

Education settings should ensure there is clear evidence in safeguarding files of concerns being logged, actions taken and outcomes. Education settings should reference key documents in safeguarding files to evidence why certain action has been taken.

The education setting should offer group work or targeted support to the child or young person who is presenting with inappropriate sexual behaviour.

Some useful resources can be found in the resource section of this guidance.

Problematic sexual behaviour

For behaviour that is assessed as ‘age and developmentally problematic’, you should consider an Early Help assessment to see if other services are needed to support the child / young person with their problematic sexual behaviour. For children and young people who are presenting with multiple problematic sexual behaviour incidents, please consider an intervention from Early Help teams that have trained practitioners that can carry out AIM Intervention work and assist School placements with RAMP assessments.

Depending on the level of risk associated with the problematic sexual behaviour and taking into account other safeguarding factors for the child or young person, the education setting may assess the level of risk as being high enough that a Children’s Social Care enquiry is submitted. Some useful resources can be found in the resource section of this guidance.

Abusive or violent sexual behaviour

For behaviour that is assessed as ‘abusive and / or violent’ you should make an immediate Children’s Social Care and / or police contact.

When making a Children’s Social Care enquiry and / or contacting the police please consider any victim(s), instigator(s) and bystander (s).

Police and/or social care will take a lead on the case moving forward and education should liaise directly with services.

The education setting must undertake a risk assessment for all incidents of abusive or violence sexual behaviour, especially if both the instigator and victim attend the same setting to ensure that all parties feel safe on site and are still able to access their education during this time.

Education settings must consider the following points when undertaking a risk assessment:

Bail conditions (Police conditions).
Views of the children and young people involved.
Views of the parents or carers.

A template risk assessment can be found in Annex B.

Managing risk

It can be very challenging and complex when managing incidents of abusive and violence sexual behaviour in education settings, especially when both the alleged instigator and any victims attend the education setting. It is important that the education setting manage any risks in a reasonable and proportionate way, considering any guidance for other professionals involved. Very often the most transparent way to put this support in place is using a risk assessment, clearly setting out expectations for all involved.

The risk assessment must consider:

the victim, especially their protection and support
whether there may have been other victims
the alleged perpetrator(s) level of risk to self and others
all the other children, (and, if appropriate, adult students and staff) at the school or college, especially any actions that are appropriate to protect them from future harms of a similar nature and from alleged perpetrator/s
the alleged perpetrators needs and what safety support will be place for them
The time and location of the incident, and any action required to make the location safer.

(Information taken from Keeping Children Safe in education Para. 483)

For further information and guidance to consider when undertaking a risk assessment following an incident of harmful sexual behaviour visit: KCSiE – Part 5.

Annex A: Resources

Circles South West

Our Young People’s Service accepts referrals for young people aged between 10 and 20 who have sexually offended or have displayed harmful sexual behaviour. Ideally the young person needs to accept responsibility for their behaviour. A Circle is made up of a young person and a group of specially trained community volunteers. The purpose of the Circle is to provide a supportive social network that enables purposeful reintegration into the community while managing the risk of further harmful sexual behaviour.

Feminista

Tackle sexism in schools UK Feminista provides training and tools to tackle sexual harassment, sexist language and gender stereotyping in schools. Find out more. Combat sexual exploitation We work with survivors, policy makers and practitioners to prevent commercial sexual exploitation. Support activism We support people to directly drive change. We provide resources, deliver training and run campaigns that enable people to create change in their communities.

Brook

The training and accompanying Tool equip professionals to make consistent and informed decisions that neither stigmatise nor criminalise young people. Participants will learn about healthy sexual development, understand key laws relating to sexual behaviour and gain knowledge on enabling robust and meaningful conversations around harmful sexual behaviours that cause concern.

NSPCC

Teaching resources and lesson plans. We’ve created a range of free classroom activities and resources to help your school keep children safe. We provide teaching resources and lesson plans for early years, primary, secondary and special needs settings. Developed by our experts in child protection and safeguarding, the resources cover the issues schools need – including bullying, sex and relationships and e-safety.

Devon SARC

Sexual assault referral centres (SARCs) offer medical, practical and emotional support. They have specially trained doctors, nurses and support workers.

Annex B: Risk assessment form

Download the blank risk assessment template.

Managing incidents of sexualised behaviour – guidance for education 2023

Contents

Document resources