CHILD ASSAULT PREVENTION - UK​
SDB has supported Child Assault Prevention's essential work in engaging schools and the communities around them in the prevention of abuse.
It is estimated that 1 in 5 adults aged 18-74 experienced at least one form of child abuse, whether emotional, physical, sexual or witnessing domestic abuse, before the age of 16 years — 8.5 million people (Crime Survey England & Wales 2020). It is recognised that these will be ‘the ones we know about — those who have disclosed’. NSPCC recognises that the figure is likely to be significantly higher than this.
If anything else were causing these kinds of statistics, prevention would be funded and everything possible done to stop whatever was causing this.
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CAP UK (Child Assault Prevention) aims to help all children become "Safe, Strong and Free" preventing all forms of abuse. CAP focuses particularly on preventing bullying, safety around strangers when out and about and online and critically, safety around known adults, including from sexual abuse. Children and their communities — parents and carers and staff — are included in CAP’s unique whole school community approach.
In 2018, as a result of funding cuts in schools, CAP was having increasing difficulty in reaching children and engaging and including schools that are challenged with the costs of running this programme. Between 2018-2020, SDB has supported CAP UK (Child Assault Prevention) in developing their work in schools. In particular, we funded parent and staff workshops that are fundamental in supporting the abuse prevention workshops that are carried out with children in primary schools.
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Thanks to our funding, CAP UK has been able to support many schools in their area, thousands of children and hundreds of staff and parents and to continue to develop the project and work with more children from September 2018. At a time when the number of children who are coming forward and with significant issues around them has increased significantly since the Covid lockdowns, this work has come to be understood by schools as an essential service.
