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The Scottish Government’s 2020 report by ‘The Expert Group on Preventing Sexual Offending Involving Children and Young People’ defines Harmful Sexual Behaviour(s) as:

‘Sexual behaviour(s) expressed by children and young people under the age of 18 that are developmentally inappropriate and may be harmful towards self or others and/or be abusive towards another child or young person’.

Whilst sexualised behaviour can be a natural healthy part of growing up, some children and young people may develop inappropriate and problematic habits, or display sexually harmful behaviour. Other children may be victims of harmful sexual behaviour.

This page has been developed to provide staff working with children and young people with information about how to identify, understand and respond appropriately to sexual behaviours in young people.

It pulls together national guidance, third sector support and good practice exemplars from across Scotland and beyond.

At all times however, it is important to remember to follow your own local authority safeguarding and child protection guidance and procedures.

Distinguishing between appropriate non-abusive behaviour and inappropriate or abusive behaviour can be a complex task that requires practitioners to have an understanding of what is healthy and informed consent and what is abusive or coercive behaviour.

There is a range of common and healthy sexual behaviours at ages from early years to young adulthood. When a child or young person behaves in ways considered to be outside this range, their behaviour may be called 'harmful' because it is harmful to themselves or others.

The Hackett Continuum (see image)

Children’s sexual behaviours sit on a continuum ranging for normal, experimental and expected behaviours that occur at different stages in childhood, through to behaviours that are inappropriate or problematic, which may cause no or limited harm to other children but which would need to be monitored and addressed to ensure they do not escalate, through to behaviours that are clearly abusive and cause harm.

A Scottish government guidance document offers evidence-based guidance for professionals in Scotland dealing with children and young people showing harmful sexual behaviour (HSB). The guidance highlights the need for a holistic approach, considering individual needs, circumstances, and development factors, while also stressing the significance of safeguarding and risk management strategies. 

Working with children and young people who have displayed harmful sexual behaviour: evidence based guidance for professionals working with children and young people

Managing and preventing harmful sexual behaviour guidelines

**NEW*** Safety Planning in Education

A new guide to support education professionals’ knowledge, skills and confidence to understand and respond to incidents of harmful sexual behaviour and ensure the safety of all children and young people is addressed.

Safety Planning in Education - Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse (CSA) Centre (PDF file)

The Beyond Referrals self-assessment toolkit is intended to support schools to identify and assess the factors that contribute to addressing HSB in schools. The Beyond Referrals project launched this toolkit in 2018, following research in schools. This new updated version includes new levers and guidance on carrying out the self-assessment. The toolkit is supported by online tutorials available on the Contextual Safeguarding Network. This guidance includes:

• A traffic light tool which forms the basis of the self-assessment
• An example completed assessment (Appendix A) to help schools to score themselves using the tool
• A blank assessment self-assessment template (Appendix B) which can be printed or completed online.

This guidance is supported by an online toolkit that can be accessed and includes:

• Online versions of the traffic light tool and templates
• Self-assessment method guides
• Scoring template to enter your scores

These Managing and Preventing Harmful Sexual Behaviour guidelines (PDF file) have been produced as a response to the sexual health needs of young people in Forth Valley. The purpose of the document is to allow all staff whether in the role of teacher, learning assistant, janitor or administrator, to use this as a reference and guide for their practice. It aims to support staff to understand how to respond and manage the sexual behaviours of the children and young people in their school.

Covid-19 restrictions mean that many children are spending more time unsupervised offline and online. The Harmful sexual behaviour prevention toolkit has been developed to spread awareness of the signs of harmful sexual behaviour, and help adults take action to prevent abuse happening.

The toolkit is suitable for parents, carers and educators working with children. As well as support, advice and information, it has links to key organisations and helplines, resources about harmful sexual behaviour by children, tips about internet safety, advice about sexual development and preventing child sexual abuse.

This Responding to young people’s experience of sexual violence for schools - a guidance for schools supports staff working with young people who have been affected by sexual violence. This can be an emotive area of work and it can sometimes be difficult to know what to do to support young people who have experienced this or who have been identified as potential perpetrators. Young people tell us that we can improve our response to them, and this guide has been written to reflect their comments and experience. This guidance was initially created by the Rape and Sexual Abuse Service Highland and has been amended for use by The Rosey Project. The Rosey Project is a support and prevention project for young people aged 13-25 at Glasgow and Clyde Rape Crisis.

Key recognising sexual behaviours documents

Harmful sexual behaviour by children and young people: Expert Group report This report, published by the Scottish Government in January 2020, sets out proposals from the Expert Group on Preventing Sexual Offending Involving Children and Young People to improve prevention and early intervention in response to harmful sexual behaviour involving children and young people.

Harmful sexual behaviour - Guidance, Resources and Research This pdf provides an overview of current guidance, resources and research linked to harmful sexual behaviour in Scotland.

 This pdf provides an overview of current guidance, resources and research linked to harmful sexual behaviour in Scotland.

National guidance for child protection in Scotland
This is the refreshed National Guidance for Scotland published in 2021.

National Guidance for Child Protection in Scotland. Additional notes for practitioners (2014). Protecting disabled children from abuse and neglect.

Childnet has produced this guidance to help parents and carers and their children talk about the important issue of online sexual bullying – specifically when this is happening between children of around the same age.

What to do when harmful sexual behaviour is identified

At all times however, it is important to remember to follow your own local authority safeguarding and child protection guidance and procedures.

Where sexual abuse of a child or young person is alleged to have been carried out by another child or young person, such behaviour should always be treated seriously and be subject to a discussion between relevant agencies that covers both the victim and the perpetrator. In all cases where a child or young person acts in a sexually abusive fashion, immediate consideration should be given to whether action needs to be taken under child protection procedures, either in order to protect the victim or to tackle concerns about what has caused the child or young person to behave in such a way. Current guidance outlines the role that a multi-agency Care and Risk Management meeting has to play in such situations to ensure that a clear assessment of risk take place and proportionate risk management measures are implemented subject to regular review to ensure further abuse does not occur.

PDF file: Care and Risk Management flowchart exemplar (982 KB)

Learning and teaching resources

Relationships, Sexual Health and Parent hood (RSHP) is a resource for teaching across all the levels of Curriculum for Excellence linked to relationships, sexual health and parenthood (RSHP) education for children and young people. This site contains activities linked to keeping safe and consent.

The resource was described as the ‘go-to resource’ in the Scottish Government’s Expert Group report on Preventing Sexual Offending Involving Children and Young People (2020) in terms of preventing and managing harmful sexual behaviour for children and young people.

Just a joke? - Childnet Lesson plans, quick activities, a quiz and teaching guide designed to explore problematic online sexual behaviour with 9-12 year olds.

Improvement questions

• To what extent do we review our safeguarding procedures and incidents as part of our self-evaluation processes? This includes the review of any incidents of inappropriate sexualised behaviour.
• How confident are staff in distinguishing between appropriate non-abusive behaviour and inappropriate or abusive behaviour?
• To what extent do staff support children and young people to understand what constitutes healthy and informed consent and what is abusive or coercive behaviour?
• How effectively do we support children and young people who display inappropriate, problematic or sexually harmful behaviour?