Psychological Counselling should be Imperative for Sex Abuse Victims, especially children

 

Most child sex abuse survivors suffer from any number of effects from their abuse for the rest of their lives. In 12 years of blogging in this subject, I have encountered only a very few who completely overcame their trauma. Counselling should be mandatory for all CSA victims until they have overcome their related issues.

As for their abusers, I suspect their problems are spiritual, not psychological.

Treatment for Sexual Abusers and

Sexual Abuse Victims

Society must find a way to treat sexual perpetrators and their victims.

Posted August 18, 2024 |  Reviewed by Tyler Woods

Jeffrey Epstein, a financier and former schoolteacher, was charged with trafficking dozens of girls, some as young as 14. He engaged in sex acts with them in his multiple mansions. It is unknown whether he was sexually abused himself, but in his early 20’s, he cultivated his grooming skills while teaching. He used his wealth and position to abuse hundreds of minors, including hiring minions to deliver his victims.

Epstein never faced those charges in court, dying by suicide in 2019. He was a tragedy to himself and a pariah to countless others.

Some of his victims will repeat what he taught them and become sexual abusers, while others may be able to choose a different path and recover through their lifetimes.

Robin Davis is a successful financier. He was sexually assaulted when he was 10 years old. Following New York’s passage of the Child Victims Act (which allowed lawsuits to be filed regardless of the expiration of the statute of limitations and although all parties were deceased), at age 79, Davis sat in a courtroom to confront the ghost that haunted him for seven decades.

In addition to being a successful financier, he was also a well-known philanthropist. His life’s passion was for fighting child abuse. (New York Times, August 5, 2024).

Recovery can take many forms.

The purpose of this article is to address treatment modalities for childhood sexual abusers and the victims of their abuse. There is a wide range of treatments, some more successful than others.

Child molesters are individuals who have committed a sexual offense against a child victim. Some believe that one important factor in this deviant development is a history of sexual victimization during their own childhood, and emotional and physical abuse as well. All three (childhood sexual abuse, physical and emotional abuse) together increase one’s vulnerability to becoming a perpetrator. The conclusion is not that individuals who have had these experiences become child molesters, only that the probability is increased.

Child sexual abuse is a public health hazard with life-changing consequences. Child abusers hold no status, trust, or faith that they can recover. Thus, successful psychological intervention with individuals who have sexually offended children is critical. Society has a responsibility to try.

What are the psychological interventions used to treat these individuals and to decrease recidivism? Since it is such a complex group of variables in predicting behaviors, the one-size-fits-all approach has been ineffective.

Negative attitudes towards this group lead to punitive treatment such as containment and monitoring (e.g., the sexual offender registry), which has yielded less than positive results in predicting recidivism.

Recidivism is difficult to monitor. The only way to ascertain data is if an individual is caught.

The solely behavioral approach views deviant sexual behavior as a distorted manifestation of sexual desires resulting from conditioned behavior (being sexually abused as a child). The goal of treatment is conditioning treatment—aversive in nature. This approach is again punitive in nature and pays little attention to thought and emotions.

The lack of success of this model led to the treatment more universally used today. It is called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and it addresses the interplay between emotions, behavior, and thoughts.

Cognitive behavioral therapy rests on the idea that problems are based on faulty or unhelpful ways of thinking as well as learned patterns of unhelpful behavior. The premise is that people can learn better ways of coping with mental unease, thus relieving their symptoms.

In addition, a relapse prevention (RP) model to deal with addictive behaviors has been added to CBT. This modality focuses on helping individuals to identify high-risk situations that might cause persons to recidivate. RP helps perpetrators to develop individual strategies to cope with these situations (e.g., staying away from children).

Empirical results are not yet definitive in findings of successful treatment, but efforts continue. The most important factor is a willingness to fully participate in treatment.

Elizabeth Hartney, Ph.D. (January 4, 2024) describes a cycle of abuse that occurs when people who were victimized can become abusive.

She has multiple theories:

1. A person may reassert their own sense of personal power and grandiosity that compensates for feelings of inadequacy and insecurity. An adult exerts power over a child. (e.g., from 1996 to 2014, Larry Nasser, as team doctor for the United States women's national gymnastics team, used his position to exploit and sexually assault hundreds of young athletes.)
2. For victims, the abuse may be repeated in adult relationships. If one connects feelings of love with their sexual trauma, there is a disconnect between love and gentleness.
3. Attachment theory suggests that some victims just avoid adult relationships.
4. Feelings of shame and anger and what some have described as "dirtiness" can ruin a victim’s life, as they shy away from relationships.
5. Abused children may believe that they are not good enough to deserve a genuinely caring relationship.

The damage is significant for those sexually abused as children. It has cost or damaged lives not only through suicide but also through a victim’s inability to have adult relationships that are mutual and loving.

Sexual assault for victims results in severe physical and emotional trauma that may affect their adult relationships for a lifetime. Not unlike treatment for offenders their treatment must be individualized.

There are several evidence-based treatments available for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a mental and behavioral disorder that develops from a traumatic event such as sexual assault. Symptoms may include disturbing thoughts, feelings, or reliving events that occurred.

Medication can serve as an adjunct to the treatments described below.

These treatments include psychodynamic psychotherapy, trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT), and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy (EMDR).

The distinguishing feature of psychodynamic psychotherapy is the focus on the feelings and emotions occurring in therapy sessions. A therapist creates a safe space with non-judgmental emotional support as well as a physically comfortable environment.

The focus of treatment is on the expression of feelings. Victims may experience re-occurring patterns (such as getting into abusive relationships) or reliving the actual experience itself. The concentration in this treatment is on the therapeutic relationship as well as other relationships in the person’s life. This modality is long-term.

The trauma-focused cognitive behavioral treatment approach (TF-CBT) is a briefer, recovery-building model for trauma-impacted children, adolescents, and adults that adapts CBT for healing from trauma.

There are several phases to TF-CBT, including learning relaxation skills to calm a physiological response (such as panic), speaking about the trauma, and education about cognitive skills.

Unlike psychodynamic therapy, this modality is more skills-based, intended to develop a method to manage rapidly changing feelings.

This is not to say the individual is discouraged from talking about their experiences, but the chronicle of events is tied to learning to transfer and manage feelings.

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is another treatment that deals with distress associated with traumatic memories. During this therapy, the therapist will move his or her fingers back and forth in front of the patient’s face so that the patient is able to follow with his or her eyes. Other people may use a metronome or foot or hand tapping. While the patient follows the rhythmic movement, the therapist will ask the patient to recall a traumatizing event. The therapist then asks the patient to gradually leave their negative thoughts. (For example, feelings of vulnerability can be counteracted by saying repeatedly "I am safe, I can choose who to trust, I can trust myself").

The hallmark of EMDR is the regular back and forth of lateral eye movements—called bilateral stimulation— while focusing on the disturbing memory.

Mental health professionals have made in-roads in the treatment of sexual abuse perpetrators and for those trauma victims who have experienced this abuse.

The future holds promise, cautions, and hope.

To find a therapist near you, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.

Susan J. Lewis, Ph.D., J.D., is a multi-credentialed mental health professional with a unique combination of licensed psychologist, forensic psychologist, and attorney.

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Rotherham MP Launches Report into How the Government is Failing Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse

MP Sarah Champion is calling on the Government to increase funding to help stop victims from 'falling through the gaps'.

Rotherham MP Sarah Champion and The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse have launched a landmark report that uncovers the lifelong impact of child sexual abuse and exposes the failure of Government to provide survivors with information and support.

The six-month inquiry, gathered the views of nearly 400 survivors from across the country.

The APPG found whilst the impact of child sexual abuse lasts a lifetime, support for survivors often falls away when they reach adulthood.

The inquiry heard that, on average, male survivors wait 26 years before disclosing their abuse, meaning some survivors never receive adequate support.

Survivors told the inquiry how their relationships and family life is impeded by abuse, with families sometimes permanently divided as a result of closure (disclosure?). Many survivors felt they did not get any support to deal with this.

Only 16% said that mental health services met their needs and many told of wrong diagnoses and counterproductive treatment plans.

The report also found statutory services are not set up to recognise child sexual abuse survivors, with many speaking of how they were often given out of date or incorrect information by GPs and other professionals.

Survivors told the inquiry that counselling from a specialist is the single most important form of support to their recovery.

Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) hold NHS responsibility for commissioning specialist voluntary sector services but the Department for Health holds no records on what they are commissioning.

Rotherham MP Sarah Champion is the Chair of the APPG, she said:

“I have spoken to hundreds of survivors of childhood sexual abuse. It is striking that almost all of them describe the way they are treated by the state as a secondary form of abuse. Who are we as a nation if we do not support victims of horrendous crime?

"It is an outrage that despite all the talk of action so many child sex abuse survivors are left to fend for themselves. This is morally wrong and makes no sense economically.

"This report gives concrete, cost-effective solutions to Ministers. Victims and survivors of child abuse are fed up with warm words from Government, they now want change.

"Nearly 400 survivors have spoken. It’s time for the Government to show it’s listening and take action."

We have written to the Department for Health for a reply but have not had a response yet.

As miserable as this report is, the UK is far ahead of most countries, even western countries in the provision of counselling for child sex abuse victims. Many countries provide little or no counselling and, probably, no country provides the level of care for as long as the survivor needs it to mostly recover from their abuse.

More Positive Stories in the War on Child Sex Abuse, Episode IV

Ireland is at least one decade behind most of the rest of the western world in its treatment of victims of child sex abuse. It's very good to see this positive first step to address the appalling inadequacy.

Pilot project to bring supports for sexually

abused children under one roof

Three government departments to co-ordinate approach

of One House centre in Galway

Elaine Edwards

Minister for Children Katherine Zappone said of One House: “This new approach is aimed at ensuring children are not retraumatised by having to recount the details of their ordeal a number of times to different people.” Photograph: Niall Carson/PA Wire

A pilot project to co-ordinate supports for children in a single place who have been sexually abused is to open in Galway early next year.

Minister for Children Katherine Zappone, Minister for Health Simon Harris and Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan announced the One House pilot project on Tuesday.

The joint approach will involve the three departments working together, along with the Child and Family Agency (Tusla), the Health Service Executive and An Garda Síochána.

Currently, where there are concerns that a child has been sexually abused, the child has to be interviewed separately by gardaí and Tusla child protection social workers and may need to have a forensic and medical examination.

These assessments may all take place in different places at different times and the child and family may then be referred to another service for counselling and support. Under the proposed model, all services and supports will operate under one roof, the Ministers said.

Child-friendly centre

Children who have been abused will be brought to this child-friendly centre where they, and their family members, will meet gardaí, doctors and social workers who will co-ordinate their assessments so the children do not have to repeat their experiences.

“I am delighted to say that the pilot centre for a new interagency service to work with children who have been sexually abused, and their families, will open in early 2019 in Galway,” Ms Zappone said.

“This new approach is aimed at ensuring children are not retraumatised by having to recount the details of their ordeal a number of times to different people.”

Ms Zappone said that, together with special rapporteur on child protection Geoffrey Shannon, representatives from An Garda Síochána, Tusla and officials from Department of Justice, she had seen at first hand similar approaches that were working well in New York, Northern Ireland and Oxfordshire.

“Those fact-finding missions together with the expertise within our own frontline agencies are allowing us to develop an Irish model – the One House approach. Funding for our new pilot was secured in Budget 2019,” she added.

Specialist expertise

Mr Flanagan said the One House centre should improve the efficiency and effectiveness of child sexual abuse services and develop specialist expertise, skills and knowledge “in this complex area for the benefit of children who have suffered from sexual abuse”.

Mr Harris said multiple interviews added to the trauma and the pain children and their families faced when a child had experienced sexual abuse.

“These families have already endured so much and we, as a Government, must do everything we can to assist them during this difficult time but also to ease their burden in any way possible,” he said.

The One House project is informed by international best practice, such as the Barnahus model in Iceland and the Child Advocacy Centre models in the US.

Failed

Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children chief executive John Church said the appropriate level of support had not always been available to children and young people in Ireland who had been sexually abused and they had been failed in this regard.

He said the ISPCC looked forward to the establishment of One House centres in further locations across Ireland on the successful completion of the pilot programme.

Rape Crisis Network Ireland (RCNI) executive director Dr Clíona Saidléar said: “We can’t continue to fail children who experience child abuse. This pilot has the potential to deliver, for the first time, dedicated wrap-around specialisation to this area of child protection. This is long overdue.”

Indeed, it is long overdue. But Thank God it is finally being realized. 

French Bishops to form commission on

historic child sex abuse

Brinkwire 
By Omer Aydin

Bishops’ conference aims to ‘shed light on sexual abuse of minors in Catholic church since 1950’

PARIS

The Bishops’ Conference of France announced Wednesday that an “independent” commission would be set up to investigate sexual abuse of minors in the Catholic Church.

Following a four-day meeting in the French city of Lourdes, French bishops released a statement saying the aim of the commission would be to “shed light on the sexual abuse of minors in the Catholic church since 1950”.

In addition, the commission would seek to “understand the reasons which led to the way these affairs were handled” and make recommendations.

And will they try to determine why it happens in the first place?

The members and leadership of the commission will be named in the coming days, with a report to be published within two years.

One of the commission’s objectives will be “collecting the stories of victims in order to better understand the reasons that led to these acts”, and the conference had indicated that financial compensation could be offered to the victims.

Well, this is a good thing! It's not ideal that it is being initiated by the Bishop's Conference as there are, no doubt, some Bishops who would rather the inquiry not be too thorough. But, in the lack of any enthusiasm by any government department to open this huge can of worms, it is good that the can will be opened. Hopefully, it is a sign that the Bishops actually want to make things right with the victims, and possibly even with God.

Tackling child sexual abuse in the Five Towns, PA

Sacred Spaces founder and CEO Shira Berkovits discussed child abuse to help kick off Aleinu: A Safeguarding Children Campaign at Young Israel of Woodmere on Oct. 30.

JEFFERY BESSEN/ HERALD

A resident of the Squirrel Hill neighborhood in Pittsburgh, where 11 people were killed and six others injured at the Tree of Life Congregation synagogue on Oct. 27, came to the Five Towns last week to speak on another painful topic.

Shira Berkovits, founder and chief executive officer of Sacred Spaces, still emotional after seeing her community targeted by an apparent anti-Semite, delved into child abuse in a presentation on Oct. 30, breaking down complex concepts into simple and easy-to-understand ideas and splicing Hebrew words into her Oct. 30 lecture. Sacred Spaces is a cross-denominational initiative to address institutional abuse in Jewish communities.

The meeting, at the Young Israel of Woodmere synagogue, was the Five Towns kickoff of Aleinu: A Safeguarding Children Campaign, which Sacred Spaces is spearheading, along with Congregation Sons of Israel, also in Woodmere, the Hebrew Academy of Long Beach, the Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway, the Hewlett-East Rockaway Jewish Centre, the Marion & Aaron Gural JCC, the Mid Island Y JCC, Ohel Children’s Home and Family Service and the UJA-Federation of New York.

Noting recent programs in the Five Towns that have addressed children’s issues not previously discussed by the Orthodox Jewish community, in-cluding drug abuse, Rabbi Hershel Billet, of Young Israel, cited “a maturation of the Jewish community” for its efforts to begin discussing difficult topics. “Children should feel safe at home, safe at a synagogue, safe at school, camp and other programs where they need the protection of those who know that ill or evil people could take advantage of our children,” Billet said.

Berkovits acknowledged her uncertainty about leaving Squirrel Hill so soon after the tragedy. She said she had spoken to a rabbi, Steven Exler, who told her, “We honor their lives by protecting other lives.”

And many children need protection: Two-thirds of the sexual assaults committed nationwide target them, according to national statistics. Berkovits, who is also a lawyer, cited a 1998 Centers for Disease Control study that surveyed 17,000 adults, and found that before they turned 18, 28 percent suffered physical abuse, 25 percent endured neglect and 20 percent had been sexually assaulted. Subsequent studies found similar results, she said. “The impact is lasting — it doesn’t just go way,” Berkovits said. “There are psychological impacts, post-traumatic stress disorder, suicide, anxiety.”

Spotting a child predator is not easy, because there is no real prototype, Berkovits noted, adding that 93 percent of predators are known or trusted by their victims, 33 percent are other young people, and according to the U.S. Department of Education, 10 percent of children in public schools have been solicited or assaulted by school personnel. “Child predators don’t end up in schools by accident,” she said, adding that they are also attracted to youth service organizations and summer camps.

Pointing to the sexual assault scandals involving the Catholic Church and Olympic gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, Berkovits noted that incidents of abuse are often reported to different people who do not see a pattern or the entire picture. Her research led her to establish Sacred Spaces.

Fingerprinting staff could help

Elliot Pasik, an attorney from Long Beach and the father of six children, has been pushing for the fingerprinting of nonpublic-school employees for more than decade. Public schools in New York state are required to fingerprint employees as part of their background checks.

“There are persons with serious criminal histories who have tried getting jobs in both the public and nonpublic schools,” Pasik said. “Checking their criminal records keeps the schoolchildren out of harm’s way. Also, people with serious criminal histories who know they will be fingerprinted are deterred from applying for school employment.”

Of the 390 Jewish nonpublic schools in the state, only two — North Shore Hebrew Academy High School, in Great Neck, and Shema Koleinu, in Brooklyn — fingerprint their employees. The New York State Association of Independent Schools recently mandated that its members fingerprint prospective employees, beginning this school year. Lawrence Woodmere Academy, in Woodmere, and North Shore are two of the 16 Long Island schools that are association members.

“Lawrence Woodmere Academy has been closely working with NYSIAS on the issue of fingerprinting requirements,” said LWA Headmaster Alan Bernstein. “NYSIAS is still reviewing a policy for existing employees, and has not yet made a decision on how member schools should begin to address that.” Bernstein said that fingerprinting each job applicant costs roughly $99.

An incident of sexual assault allegedly occurred recently at LWA. A former teacher at the school, Daniel McMenamin, of Valley Stream, was arrested on Oct. 18 and charged with multiple counts of sexual assault. He is alleged to have engaged in several acts of sexual misconduct with a girl who was a student at the school from November 2014, when she was 14, until July 2017, according to police.

Saying he takes the responsibility of keeping 450 boys and girls safe seriously, North Shore Headmaster Dr. Daniel Vitow said that is the reason his school fingerprints all prospective employees, from custodians to administrators, as part of the school’s background check. “I want to make sure that we’re working to maintain the maximum degree of safety and security,” Vitow said, adding that the policy has been in place for five years.

The Hebrew Academy of Long Beach, which includes HALB Elementary and Davis Renov Stahler Yeshiva High School for Boys, both in Woodmere, Stella K. Abraham High School for Girls and the Lev Chana Early Childhood Center, both in Hewlett Bay Park, and the Avnet summer day camp in Woodmere, does not fingerprint its employees. “We do comprehensive background checks on all employees,” said Executive Director Richard Hagler.

Berkovits said that organizations and institutions must “decentralize power” and establish committees that will implement best practices to protect the children in their care. “What we are building has the ability to change the world,” she said.

Nearly all who attended the meeting were educators, social workers or youth group leaders. Michele Vernon, a senior vice president of Camp Sunrise, and Brielle Brook, the camp’s registrar, both said they benefited from Berkovits’s presentation. “It was concise and proactive on how we can take care of the children,” Vernon said.

“I liked that the institutions are working on this together,” Brooke added, “and we don’t have reinvent the wheel.”

Religious institutions to be included in N.Z.

child sex abuse inquiry

Chris Bramwell, Deputy Political Editor

The Government's inquiry into the abuse of children in state care will be expanded to include the abuse of children in the care of religious institutions.

The Inquiry is to be called the Royal Commission into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-Based Institutions, to reflect its expanded scope.

The Royal Commission was formally established in February to be chaired by the former Govenor-General Sir Anand Satyanand, with the terms of reference, budget and additional inquiry members to be announced after consultation and Cabinet approval.

Its initial scope was to cover circumstances where the state directly ran institutions like child welfare institutions, borstals or psychiatric hospitals, and where the government contracted services out to other institutions, but as of today that will be expanded to include children in the care of faith-based institutions

Religious groups and church abuse survivors have been lobbying to be included in the inquiry since it was announced.

It will begin hearing evidence from January next year with the first interim report, which will be focussed on state care, to be reported back by the end of 2020.

A final report containing the Royal Commission's findings and recommendations will be submitted to the Governor-General in January 2023.

The Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, said it was critical the Government got the Royal Commission right and the scope and purpose of the Inquiry has been carefully considered.

"Today paves the way for us to confront a dark chapter of our national history by acknowledging what happened to people in state care, and in the care of faith-based institutions, and to learn the lessons for the future."

The four other members of the Inquiry have been confirmed as Ali'imuamua Sandra Alofivae, Andrew Erueti, Paul Gibson; and Judge Coral Shaw.

The Inquiry has a budget of $78.85 million over four years, which includes more than $15 million to help participants by providing counseling and related support.

The New Zealand Catholic Bishops and Catholic Religious orders have welcomed the inclusion of faith-based institutions in the inquiry.

The President of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference, Patrick Dunn, said the church reaffirmed its support and desire to learn from this national undertaking which it was confident would contribute positively to the strengthening and safeguarding of its families, communities and society.

"The view we expressed during the consultation was that it would be wrong if some individuals were excluded from the Inquiry simply because their path of referral to an institution was different from someone else's."

The Catholic Church has appointed a new group to ensure it provides a co-ordinated and co-operative response to the Commission from all the many dioceses, congregations and institutions of the Church in this country. The new group is called Te Rōpū Tautoko.

Its chair Catherine Fyfe said it would support the Royal Commission with the information they need.

"We will review the Terms of Reference and look forward to working with the Commission as it progresses the next steps in this process. We will collectively work towards healing."

The Anglican Archbishop Philip Richardson said he was also pleased the Government had responded positively to calls, including from the churches, to broaden the scope of inquiry.

"Our primary concern is for the needs of those whose lives have been impacted by abuse, and we are conscious that abuse has been perpetrated by agencies across our society, including the Church and its agencies.

Philip Richardson said justice must not only be done, but also be seen to be done. "A Royal Commission of Inquiry provides a forum, a credibility and an independence, which victims and survivors of abuse and the wider public will trust.

"While I think that that those in authority in the church today have a good sense of what the scope of historical abuse of children in the care of the Anglican Church has been, we can't be categorical about that.

"We see this Commission of Inquiry as one way we can put that faith into action, and our hope is that this broader inquiry will provide a pathway to healing and wholeness for all concerned."

An Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse presented its final report at the end of last year after about three-and-a-half years of hearings - the Australian inquiry included public and private institutions, including child-care, cultural, educational, religious, sporting and other institutions.

Statewide trauma counselling service announced

for Victoria child sex abuse survivors

Siobhan Calafiore
Local News

A statewide trauma counselling service to support survivors of institutional child sexual abuse has been announced as part of the National Redress Scheme.

The Andrews Labor Government announced $12.3 million in funding over four years to deliver the Restore: Victorian Redress Counselling Service program, which is accessible from  Monday.   

The funding will support the establishment and delivery of the program, led by the South Eastern Centre Against Sexual Assault, in response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse recommendations.

Ballarat CASA will be one of the major beneficiaries.

The Care Leavers Australasia Network, Open Place, Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency and Drummond Street will work alongside the centre to deliver the counselling service, with survivors able to choose the services they want to access. 

Families and Children Minister Jenny Mikakos said the partnership was a way to stand side-by-side with survivors and their families.

“Each organisation in this program is an established, trusted organisation with significant experience delivering specialist services and they will be of great support to those who need it,” Ms Mikakos said.

Ballarat sexual abuse survivor Phil Nagle welcomed the announcement.

“Some of our survivors from Ballarat are already based in Melbourne, so hopefully they can use the services, but there are obviously a lot of survivors still in the Ballarat region that aren’t in the situation where they can travel,” he said.

“These things are just a starting point, so hopefully we can try get some momentum and build on from there.”

Mr Nagle said he applauded any funding that went towards helping survivors. “Particularly mental health services,” he said. “Because that is what has been lacking for a lot of people – where do you go? Who do you talk to?”

Ballarat Centre Against Sexual Assault has been one of the services stretched since the Royal Commission. “They’ve been the linchpin for a lot of the survivors in Ballarat and they’ve certainly been heavily involved in our situation,” Mr Nagle said.

Ballarat CASA operational director Shireen Gunn said all 14 centres across the state would benefit as part of the five-organisation consortium.

“We’re really pleased to be able to receive that funding,” she said. “It allows us to continue to support the cohort we are already servicing and cover a larger group of survivors.”

NSW Government to introduce tougher laws

for concealing child abuse

Sage Swinton

Maitland Christian Church pastor Bob Cotton gathered 13,000 signatures for a petition calling for harsher penalties for concealing child sex abuse. Picture: Marina Neil

The NSW Government will introduce harsher penalties for concealing child abuse thanks to a Maitland-born push to up the maximum jail term.

The proposed changes, set to be the toughest in the country, will see the maximum penalty for concealing child abuse increased from two to five years, or seven years if the person received a benefit for concealing.

It comes after Maitland pastor Bob Cotton launched a petition pushing for the reform, which amassed 13,000 signatures, as covered by The Mercury over the past few months.

Pastor Cotton said he believed the proposed law change was “one of the most significant pieces of legislation” to come out of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse.

“I’m very grateful the government has done this,” he said. “They’ve listened to the people.”

Pastor Cotton has been pushing for the change for more than two years. Fairfax Media reported back in October 2016 that he had joined forces with survivors Peter Gogarty and Paul Gray to push for the law reform.

He said he “always thought” the changes would come, but did not expect as much resistance as he initially received.

The government introduced some reforms to child abuse laws back in June, but kept the maximum penalty for concealing at two years. “I was really disappointed on June 20,” he said. “Those laws hadn’t worked in the past.”

But since then, Archbishop Philip Wilson was sentenced to 12 months home detention for concealing abuse, which caused outcry within the community.

Pastor Cotton said he believed amending the laws would change the future. “It’s not going to be worth people’s while to protect pedophiles,” he said.

Attorney General Mark Speakman agreed with Pastor Cotton.

“Child abuse can lead to a lifetime of trauma for victims and should be reported to police immediately,” Mr Speakman said.

“Increasing penalties for concealment will deter people from protecting pedophiles or turning a blind eye to their crimes.

“These reforms will enable courts to impose longer sentences on people who protect pedophiles and other heinous child abusers.”

NSW and Victoria are the only states in Australia with a concealment offence specifically related to child abuse (NSW) or child sexual abuse (Victoria).  In Victoria, the maximum penalty is three years’ imprisonment.

Can a Child Sexual Offender be Cured?

Jane Lee, The Age

In a row of suburban cafes, one shop's windows are covered in grey stickers. You might mistake it for an abandoned takeaway restaurant.

The work that happens behind them is very private. And very important.

Corrections Victoria staff and psychologists who treat sex offenders in the community say that therapeutic treatment can halve the rate of recidivism. Photo: John Donegan

This is Dr Karen Owen's practice. It is here that she treats some of the most damaged and potentially damaging men in the state. Men who have, or who might one day, sexually abuse a child.

Here Owen and her team of six psychologists and sexual health counsellors see a steady stream of clients who struggle daily to battle either a sexual attraction to children or an impulse to abuse them. That they do this largely hidden from public view tells us something about the crime and about ourselves.

Paedophiles make up only a very small minority of the adults who sexually abuse children.

Photo: Dimitri Maruta

Most crimes can be understood, and many can be forgiven. But when it comes to child sex offenders, society tends to turn away in disgust. Some react with anger to those who try to look dispassionately at what is happening. But what if, in refusing to look, we are failing to do everything we can to prevent these crimes?

Conventional wisdom has it that child sex offenders lurk among us until caught, and that they can never be cured. But psychologists around the world who have dedicated their careers to studying and treating sexually abusive behaviours have discovered over decades of research that we are only partly right.

While there is no pill that can cure child sex offenders, there are therapeutic methods that can help prevent them from reoffending. Corrections Victoria staff and psychologists who treat sex offenders in the community say that therapeutic treatment can halve the rate of recidivism.

German researchers from the University of Erlangen conducted a meta-analysis of outcomes from psychological programs for sex offenders around the world. The study, published in the Journal of Experimental Criminology in 2005, found that those who received treatment were about 37 per cent less likely to re-offend than those who received none.

Well, that is much closer to one-third than half, but the point is made that it can have an effect, which, inevitably means fewer children being sexually molested and, perhaps, reduces demand for child porn.

Dr Karen Owen, who treats child sex offenders, calls herself the "ultimate sceptic": "I want to work collaboratively with them but my job is community protection." Photo: Jason South

It also found that the results of the programs had not improved significantly since the 1970s.

One problem with such treatment is that it's difficult to find. If you are an adult who wrestles every day with a sexual attraction to children or some other desire to abuse them, there are few places to get help outside of jail.

About 101 adults who offend against children will participate in prison sex offenders programs each year. Photo: Supplied

Another, is that when we think about child sexual abuse the word that comes to mind is often "paedophile".

In fact, paedophiles make up only a very small minority of the adults who sexually abuse children. A paedophile is defined as someone who is primarily and deviantly sexually attracted to children. They are extremely difficult – some say impossible – to treat.

In fact, pre-pubescent children! Their extremely difficult to treat because their issues are not psychological, but spiritual, even demonic! Such people can be treated, but not by psychologists who don't recognize the reality of demonic possession or influence. 

Offenders are largely left alone with their thoughts and in the full knowledge of the community's hatred for them and their crimes. Photo: Viki Lascaris

Yet most child sex offenders can be drawn to abuse children for a variety of reasons, many of which are not even sexual. They are generally considered more amenable to treatment.

And most adults who abuse children will never reoffend. Even without treatment only a minority – experts estimate between 10 to 25 per cent – go on to do it again. But given the enormous damage this small number are known to cause, reducing this group even further is down to people like Karen Owen.

I have some difficulty with this statement when you consider that 75-80 of sexually abused children are repeatedly abused, and most of them are repeatedly abused by the same person.

Conventional wisdom has it that child sex offenders can never be cured. Photo: Craig Sillitoe

Owen did not set out to work with with child sex offenders. As a nurse who specialised in treating intellectually disabled patients, she wondered: why did so many act out sexually?

It was partly to answer this question that she started studying psychology in the 1980s. In 1993, she was one of two people tasked with turning a pilot program at Pentridge Prison into Victoria's – and Australia's – first sex offender treatment program. (Previously, the only programs available were those available to non-sexual offenders, like anger management and stress reduction.)

She travelled to Canada to learn from Bill Marshall, who helped establish some of the earliest sex offender treatment programs in prisons, and is a prominent advocate for the view that cognitive behavioural therapy can help prevent abuse.

Though she expected to bear witness to some kind of dramatic transformation, the reality of trying to change human behaviour proved much less glamorous. Marshall told her: "'All you need to know is that this bloke knows that you're not going to muck around with him and that he needs to be in the room on Monday. You start unpacking the rest of it from that day on."

The sex offender treatment program Owen went on to establish for Victoria's prisons priorities of treatment for those who pose a higher risk. It is centred on group sessions involving a range of sexual offenders (not just those who abuse children), and focuses on diminishing their ability to manipulate others, improving their relationship skills and reducing feelings of isolation.

Since 2013, the program has focused on helping prisoners build on their strengths and identify the triggers that might lead them to reoffend.

In NSW, the state government runs programs with both prisoners and sex offenders released in the community. A Corrective Services NSW spokeswoman says treatment includes "programs that encourage offenders to acknowledge their sex-offending behaviour and prepare them for more intensive treatment".

Sex offenders assessed to have the greatest risk of reoffending are a priority. One program for high-risk sex offenders, Custody Based Intensive Treatment involves  group-based therapy and targets issues such as sexual behaviour, drug- and alcohol-related offending, anti-social attitudes, coping mechanisms and relationship problems, she says. 

While judges can order lower level offenders to attend treatment programs in the community, prison remains the main avenue by which adult offenders can receive therapeutic treatment in Australia.

This means we rely on prisons to treat such people, but only once they have already abused children.

Psychologists argue we could do more to prevent them committing crimes in the first place. That brings us to another popular misconception: that these men don't want to seek help.

In 2008, Owen left Corrections, partly because the workload of assessing child sex offenders before the courts grew too great. She started her own private practice, expecting most of the work to come from consulting on criminal and family law cases.

Within a week, however, she started getting calls. Some had seen her in prison and tracked her down after release. Others told her they had never abused children but feared they would, and had heard that she could help them.

"One of the misconceptions I had was that men only want to come to treatment once they get caught because they have to," she says."It's just not true. There are men who struggle with these issues, some who have offended, and some who haven't but know they're heading in that direction who genuinely know they don't want to do it and want to seek help."

Germany recognized this at least 12 years ago and began a program there to help pedophiles to keep from physically offending in the first place.

She and her colleagues usually treat their patients fortnightly for about a year. Some patients visit a GP for a referral for anxiety or depression, which allows them to claim a Medicare subsidy for up to 10 psychologist sessions a year. But most – from a range of backgrounds – pay hundreds of dollars a session up front.

While she supports the prison system's continuing focus on group therapy to minimise harm, Owen also sees an important role for individual treatment to tackle the way offenders view themselves and what they have done and create lasting behavioural change.

Most of the clients she sees are not so much deviant as damaged. Many have experienced some form of abuse or neglect in their own childhoods that affects their ability to develop social skills. They often suffer sexual performance problems and lack basic sexual education. As a result, says Owen, they form distorted ways of viewing relationships, women and sex, which, once deeply embedded in their minds, are easily used to justify their abuse of children.

Only a minority meet the clinical diagnosis for paedophilia; Owen estimates about 40 per cent of her practice's clients have an intellectual disability. Often, she says, "They're trying to achieve intimacy or avoid feelings of loneliness."

These distortions can develop at an early age following exposure to abuse in their own families, or over a long period of time, to be cemented when they become isolated in later life.

This is very much how Natascha Kampusch describes her abductor and rapist for 8.5 years. 

One of her former patients initially believed he was helping the children he met online, in teaching them about sex and protecting them from further harm.

Owen helps her patients unpack the reasons for these distortions, undo them and, most importantly, to take responsibility for them. Together they develop strategies for healthy sexual relationships, to avoid situations where they risk abusing children and develop empathy for their victims.

She helped the patient who saw himself as a "saviour" realise that he was actually trying to groom under-age children for his own sexual pleasure.

It turned out he was not exclusively attracted to children. But his intense fears of intimacy drove him to them, as there was less chance they would reject him than other adults.

This does not mean that therapeutic treatment works every time.

Owen calls herself the "ultimate sceptic": she does not pretend her job is easy. One of the first times she assessed an offender's risk of reoffending, she says her inexperience led a man became so aroused describing his own crimes that he ejaculated on the other side of the table from her. Patients also try to intimidate her to avoid confronting their personal issues.

"I want to work collaboratively with them but my job is community protection," Owen says. "So if I think they're a risk to themselves or others everyone's going to know it."

Since 2011, a Victorian state inquiry and a royal commission have exposed how major institutions have responded to historic child sexual abuse.

The County Court  - which deals with most of  Victoria's child sexual abuse cases - is bracing itself for greater numbers of cases following the state inquiry and royal commission into child abuse. However in recent years the number that have been resolved by the court have fluctuated across different crimes - though cases of sexual penetration of a 16 or 17 year-old, jumped from 20 in 2014/15 to 36 in 2015/16.

Generally, only those who are sentenced to more than 18 months' jail can hope to secure a place in prison treatment programs in Victoria. Corrections Victoria says they assess on a case by case basis but they believe that treatment for less than 18 months is ineffective.

About 101 adults who offend against children will participate in prison sex offenders programs each year.

Given there are only a handful of private therapists in Victoria who, like Owen, specialise in treating child sex offenders, most offenders rely on Corrections to support them after they are released, either by supervising them or referring them for treatment to public mental health service Forensicare. Very few who struggle with these issues refer themselves there.

Some offenders are able to nominate support people, who Corrections trains to look out for signs they may re-offend. But Owen says this assumed child sex offenders had friends and relatives in the community willing to do this: "It's only good so long as people give a shit about you and not many of them do."

It takes a certain type of person to take on this demanding task. Andrew*, who has been involved in prison fellowships for most of his life, is that type of person. Not much fazes the soft-spoken, white-haired man. He started screening movies for prisoners as a teenager, and went on to organise visitors for those who had none of their own.

He runs a weekly support group for child sex offenders in the community, but will not publicly reveal the place they meet weekly to talk and pray.

Andrew does not think there is a permanent cure for child sex offenders. "Some can resist it, but when a damaged person still longs for intimacy and can only find it where they have total power, that's the direction they will go in."

"The longing for intimacy is such a powerful thing in all humanity and it can be such a blessing or (a curse)."

The answer, he says, is to create a community for them to live in. "Often it's not just a fact of whether we accept people. It's whether they can really comprehend they are accepted, they can see it, feel it and know they have friends."

Many Christians struggle with the same issue in their relationship with God. In spite of all that Jesus Christ has done for us, we still sometimes feel like we have to earn His acceptance.

Owen says dangers lie in the absence of such a community. Offenders may serve lengthy sentences, but most are ultimately released. While some may be supervised closely in the community, most have no personal support.

So offenders are largely left alone with their thoughts and in the full knowledge of the community's hatred for them and their crimes.

"You can do offence-specific treatment all your life ... but if they don't believe that they're worth being on the planet then they're not going to implement the strategies," she says.

Owen also says a move in recent years towards greater monitoring of sex offenders in the community also provides a "false sense of security" and often has little impact on the likelihood they will abuse again.

"One of the risks we run is that we rely on the monitoring to do what treatment could have much more effectively done if we had even more resources."

Could we do more to keep the community safe from the risk of child sexual abuse?

Professor Doug Boer, the past president of the International Association for the Treatment of Sex Offenders, offers no easy answers.

Boer, who treats adolescents and works with prison programs in Canberra, believes that our ability to significantly improve the way we support offenders is limited, in many ways, by stigma around child abuse.

It is difficult, he says, to assess whether prison treatment programs are truly effective because they are always voluntary and affected by "selection bias". While Corrections argues most offenders participate because they are motivated by the prospect of being released early on parole, Boer says there is no way of knowing how many have declined treatment who could have benefited from it.

One alternative, he offers, would be to make the sex offender treatment program compulsory in prisons, though this approach "requires a bit of back-bone" because it would require us to provide treatment to all offenders, while accepting that some may still go on to reoffend.

And limited political appetite exists to devote more resources to helping offenders and those at risk of becoming offenders particularly when the outcomes remain unclear.

"My argument would be that our society is hung up on statistical significance ... But I suspect if one less child was victimised, society would think it was worth it."

Society has little idea how many children are being victimized, and if they did know, they would not be impressed by one child in a million being spared abuse. Doing some quick math I determined that about 15,000 children per year are sexually abused in Victoria. Considering what psychologists charge for their services, one would like to see a much better return on that investment. Perhaps a comprehensive study is needed to determine approximately how many children were spared by psychological intervention.

with Michaela Whitbourn