What information may be helpful for parents or carers to understand about sexual abuse?

Sexual abuse can take many forms:

• It may not involve a high level of violence
• The child may, or may not, be aware of what is happening
• Sexual abuse may involve physical contact
• But it can include non-contact activities, such as forcing a child to watch sexual activity
• Sexual abuse can take place online. This might include grooming a child, in preparation for abuse. Grooming is where a perpetrator does things to gain a young person’s trust
• Sexual abuse is not only something which is done by adult males. Women, or even other children, can commit acts of sexual abuse.

But whatever the situation, sexual abuse is never the child’s fault.