News

It is perhaps unfortunate that the title of The Lucy Faithfull Foundation's campaign, Stop It Now! sounds rather like that of the NSPCC's huge prevention-cum-fundraising campaign, Full Stop. Unfortunate because people might assume Stop It Now! is a paler version of the same thing, encouraging parents to beware, children to take care and the public to assume more responsibility for child protection.
But in reality the new campaign, launched under the umbrella of the government-funded Wolvercote Centre (the Wolvercote clinic is now defunct) and supported by the NSPCC, Barnardo's, ChildLine and others, takes a radically different tack.


It sees sexual abuse as "a preventable public health problem" and wants it to be recognised as such. To that end it intends to offer help to those who may be in danger of abusing children; those who may not yet have committed an offence but fear that they may do so. It hopes that they will either come forward and seek help of their own free will or be encouraged to do so by friends or partners, or that they will be referred by third parties.

John Brownlow, national co-ordinator of the scheme, points to the behaviour change effected by public health campaigns aimed at drink-driving, unsafe sex and smoking. He also says that child protection currently embraces measures such as targeting at risk-groups and helping children; the criminal justice system; treatment; and support from agencies. As Fran Henry, president of Stop It Now! in the US says: "At the moment we wait for children to be abused and then society lines up behind them to help." Persuading potential offenders to take note of their own warning signs, or encouraging others to do so for them, isn't yet part of preventive public health.

Such warning signs might be downloading pornography, or inappropriate behaviour by young males that is too easily dismissed as "boys will be boys". The target groups for Stop It Now! include people who identify themselves as potential abusers and young people who exhibit sexualised behaviour - who may or may not have committed an offence - and their family and friends.

The campaign has been imported from the US, where an agency with the same name started work in 1995. Where it has operated - in Vermont, Philadelphia and Minnesota - it has produced encouraging results. For example, 15 per cent of callers to the Vermont helpline were self-referrals.

The helpline operated as part of the UK campaign has been active since June, but was only made public in September. It has attracted 90 callers who have made 187 calls. The same number of women (45) have called as men. Thirty men, and no women, identified themselves as abusers or potential abusers, 44 as family or friends, three as neighbours and there were 11 professional referrals or requests for information. Vermont, with a population of half a million people, had 657 calls in the first four years but call rates have since increased. Awareness of abuse and an understanding of the warning signs have all risen among Vermonters since Stop It Now! started.

Stop it Now! will work predominantly through helplines, but will also raise awareness and work with the media, parents, GPs, teachers, and other professionals.

The success of Stop it Now! will largely rest on the number of people who refer themselves to the project. While there are a group of offenders (or potential offenders) who are compulsive and untreatable, there may be a much larger number who find themselves accessing child pornography over the internet and worry about it to the extent that they will seek help.

That there can be a strong element of self-reproach and remorse when it comes to child sexual abuse can be seen, most dramatically, in the number of offenders who commit suicide while awaiting trial or while serving a sentence. Thus, the Stop It Now! strategy rests very much on people taking personal responsibility for their own actions, being concerned about their own potential behaviour and being willing to do something about it.


Those who have come forward so far illustrate how diverse the people with whom Stop It Now! works can be. One man spoke to his wife after twice calling the helpline, and then he and his wife went together to the police and handed in his computer. A child protection investigation was then launched with regard to their children and he was cautioned. He continued to call the helpline and received help from the Wolvercote Centre.

In another case a young man sought help when he became concerned about his fantasising about young children. He had even cut himself off from his friends when a friend's young sister featured in his fantasies.

"The ethos of the helpline," says Brownlow "is that people contact us if they are worried about something going on. We can help them think clearly about taking action to stop, if that's what is needed, and about seeking further help. It is about callers taking responsibility for themselves, their concerns and their actions."

There is not much research evidence that there is a clear continuum of offending, starting with downloading pornography and ending in abuse. But an estimated third of those who abuse children also use pornography, and Stop It Now! has also taken account of what people on treatment programmes have said about how they got into offending.

The Department of Health and the Home Office are funding Stop It Now!'s core costs for three years. The Surrey branch of the service, launched in September, is run by the Wolvercote Centre and paid for by the Home Office, while the project in Derbyshire is funded by the NSPCC.

The hope is that within six to nine months more projects will be up and running. Thames Valley will probably be next, there are steering groups in the west Midlands and in Northern Ireland, and there are groups of people interested in extending the work in Wales and Scotland.

Because of the sensitive local nature of sex offending work, Stop It Now! is anxious to work through community groups, churches and other faith communities, representatives from black and ethnic minority organisations, and local businesses. It also looks to partnership with official agencies: for example, a locally based Sure Start project could be a partner because of its emphasis on parenting. Stop It Now! places emphasis on public meetings to attract not only local professionals and interest groups but also ordinary members of the public.

"One of our challenges at the moment," says Brownlow "is that we do not have public health on board because child sex abuse is not seen as part of the public health agenda." One glimmer of hope is that child protection is being placed under public health within primary care trusts - but it is too early to see if this will mean that it will be differently addressed. Health visitors, however, do see the issue as being about public health.

Brownlow says that Stop It Now! is about changing attitudes. It may say something about attitudes to child protection that it is the first agency to make that its sole brief. The campaign aims to give adults the responsibility for prevention, and by doing so, lift the burden that falls on children.