Harmful Sexual Behaviour
Children and young people who display harmful sexual behaviour should be identified at the earliest opportunity and their behaviour addressed in order to both meet their needs and to protect other children.
It is important to remember that children and young people who display harmful sexual behaviours may themselves have considerable unmet needs. For some the manifestation of harmful sexual behaviours may be as a direct result of suffering abuse themselves.
The attached protocol is about supporting young people and their families when sexual behaviours become problematic and harmful and providing professionals with guidance about how to identify such behaviours and how to respond to them. At Baildon CE Primary school we follow this guidance, which is included within our Safeguarding policy also.
Definitions Harmful sexual behaviour by children and young people includes a range of behaviours in a variety of situations and can be defined as: – “Sexual behaviours expressed by children and young people under the age of 18 years old that are developmentally inappropriate, may be harmful towards self or others, or be abusive towards another child, young person or adult” (Hackett 2014).
For further information, please go to our policies page to view Bradford's Harmful Sexual Behaviour protocol and our safeguarding policy.
