Children and Young People’s Sexual Development, Consent and Risk

It is important that trusted adults support children and young people to understand the normality of their sexual development to enable them to make safe and healthy relationships as adults.

To protect children from harm or significant harm, practitioners must receive training (See SPB Training) to understand normal child hood sexual development, this then enables them to understand the signs of abuse, neglect and exploitation (See SPB Responding to Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation and SPB chapters on sexual abuse, criminal and sexual exploitation, harmful sexual behaviour (HSB) and domestic abuse.

All children go through normal healthy phases of sexual development, this is part of growing up. Local and national reviews however have found that there needs to be understanding of the environment children live in, support for children, parents and for practitioners to manage this phase of development.  Whilst keeping this in the context, that many children grow up without any harm occurring to them, some children can be exposed risk and some experience significant harm which can have a lifelong impact on them.

Local

The Safeguarding Partnership Board (SPB) (Jersey) carry out local Rapid Reviews and Serious Case Reviews to understand on island risk to children and young people – Child Sexual Exploitation/Abuse (CSE/A) is an on-island risk for our children.

The Child Sexual Abuse/Exploitation Strategy 2022 – 2024 was set up as means to tackle this problem head on with a whole system approach and community response, to CSE/A in Jersey.

In September 2021 Jersey held a Rapid Review - “You Couldn’t Avoid It” this investigated testimonies from older girls of misogyny, sexism and sexual abuse. The review highlighted the importance of understanding “Peer on Peer Abuse” (synonym - child on child abuse) in the context and locations in which sexual harassment and abuse occurred in school.

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) carried out an on island audit into how well island services are equipped to support children and young people who present with harmful sexual behaviours (HSB).

As well as this the minister for Justice and Home Affairs established a taskforce to tackle violence against women and girls (VAWG - “It’s a hidden problem” 2022). This shone a light on the nature, extent and very real issue of violence against women and girls in Jersey, which includes sexual abuse.

All these work streams align with Jersey’s Building a Safer Community (BASC).

National

The Home Office in conjunction with Barnardo’s developed “Boys2”, a resource to identify young males at risk of child sexual exploitation.

The Verge of Harming (Safelives 2022) research project focused on developing understandings of abuse in young people’s relationships, and amongst things, identified that whilst many children had examples of normative healthy relationships modelled by adults these were predominantly heteronormative. This therefore led to a narrow view of what healthy relationships look like for those children and young people when navigating healthy LGBTQ+ relationships.

Human development is a lifelong process of physical, behavioural, cognitive, emotional growth and change.  
Sexuality is a lifelong process and adults hold a responsibility to help children and young people understand and accept their evolving sexuality.

Where each stage of development encompasses specific markers:

The Growth and Development Ages 9 to 12 - where a child is likely to experience growth spurt and enter puberty.

The Growth and Development Ages 13 – 17, -  a particularly complex stage for children and young people. This is the stage where most children will complete puberty and physical transition from childhood to adulthood. Between the ages of 13 to 17 most children and young people understand that they are sexual and understand there are options and consequences of sexual expression. They may choose to express their sexuality in different ways (which may not include contact sexual activity) and understand their own sexual orientation and identity.

Children and young people can be helped to develop health relationships with the support of their parents/carers and trusted practitioners to:

• Respect their privacy while encouraging them to talk;
• Talk about how their bodies change and what they can expect as they grow and develop;
• Inform them of the risks of making friendships online with unknown persons;
• Mirror positive adult behaviours, of mutual respect and listen to what they say as experts in their own lives;
• Help them understand that whilst they are maturing physically, they still have lots of emotional and cognitive growth ahead and that being sexually active (including sexual intercourse) can cause confusion and is not legal choice, below the age of 16;
• Inform them of what consent means;
• Discuss together factors that can influence their choices, including age, mutual consent, protection, contraception, love and intimacy;
• You may wish to share thoughts that although sex can be pleasurable, young people should wait until they are in as mature and loving a relationship as possible;
• Although this may feel contradictory, discuss how it is best to avoid unprotected sex;
• Talk about contraception and talk about the importance for their health and protection of condom use;
• Discuss options should unprotected sex take place, including pregnancy testing, emergency contraception, and sexually transmitted Infection (STI) testing and treatment;
• Discuss options should a pregnancy occur;
• Discuss what exploitative behaviours may look like;
• Use inclusive language that recognises the normality of LGBTQ + identity and relationships.

Resources are available for parents, carers and practitioners which can be accessed through here through Brook.

Gillick competence is used to assess a child’s capability to make and understand their decisions in a wider context. Fraser Guidelines are applied specifically to advice and treatment that focuses on a young person’s sexual health and contraception.

It is considered good practice for workers to follow the Fraser guidelines when discussing personal or sexual matters with a young person under 16. The Fraser guidelines give guidance on providing advice and treatment to young people under 16 years of age. These hold that sexual health services can be offered without parental consent providing that:

• The young person understands the advice that is being given;
• The young person cannot be persuaded to inform or seek support from their parents and will not allow the worker to inform the parents that contraceptive/protection, e.g. condom advice, is being given;
• The young person is likely to begin or continue to have sexual intercourse without contraception or protection by a barrier method;
• The young person's physical or mental health is likely to suffer unless they receive contraceptive advice or treatment. It is in the young person's best interest to receive contraceptive/safe sex advice and treatment without parental consent.

Sex education makes it more likely that a young person’s first sexual encounter will happen later in a young person’s life, and when a young person feels ready. Which has a positive impact on their self-esteem and self-worth, where they are more likely to wait, until first sex is genuinely wanted and agreed to and consensual.

Jersey’s Sexual Offences Law 2018 clarifies the definition of consent.

Consent is not given if a person is:

• Asleep;
• Unconscious;
• Incapable of consenting due to alcohol or any other substance;
• Lacks capacity to consent (under the Capacity and Self Determination (Jersey) Law 2016 and Code of Practice). (Training and a 7 minute briefing on this law is available through SPB Training).

Free Agreement is not given if:

• Violence is used or threatened;
• A person is being held captive unlawfully;
• A person is being deceived about what they are consenting to;
• A person is misled about who the other person is.

Consent must be given to the specific act and cannot be given by someone else. Can be taken back at any time before or during the act. If the act still takes place or continues; it does so without consent.

The Sexual Offenses (Jersey) Law 2018 creates specific offenses in relation to children up to the age of 16 years or younger as they cannot give consent.

The Sexual Offenses (Jersey) Law 2018 creates specific offenses in relation to children up to the age of 16 years or younger as they cannot give consent.

Offences by adults against children:

A child of 15 years (up to the age of 16) and younger cannot give consent.

Sexual offences by adults against children aged 12 or younger:

Sexual offences by adults against children aged 12 or younger - are strict liability offences. This means that consent is irrelevant, this aged child cannot give consent, or in any circumstance. There is also “no defence of reasonable belief,” that the adult believed this child was older.

The offences are:

• Penile penetration, sexual penetration or sexual touching of a young child;
• Causing or inciting a sexual act with a young child.

Sexual Offences by adults against older children:

Sexual offences by adults against children aged 13, 14 or 15 (up to the age of 16) - the child’s ability to consent remains irrelevant but there is a defence of “reasonable belief” as some children of this age may look older than they are.

The offences are:

• Unlawful sexual intercourse with sexual penetration of/ or sexual touching of an older child;
• Causing or inciting a sexual act with an older child.

Other offences against children aged 15 or younger:

The law also deals with underage sexual offences when both participants are children. It is accepted that there is a role for the criminal law in this area to protect against: peer on peer abuse; sexual abuse, rape and abusive relationships with and between children.

Other offences are:

• An adult causing a child aged 15 or younger to watch a sexual act or be present during a sexual act;
• An adult sexually grooming a child aged 15 or younger;
• A person (of any age) paying for a sexual service by a child;
• A person (of any age) causing, inciting or controlling prostitution or pornography involving a child anywhere in the world.

While the law does deal with unlawful sexual intercourse between children under 16, authorities will exercise discretion to avoid criminalising young people where it is not in the public interest. As the law does not wish to intervene in normative teenage sexual behaviours.

Behaviours related to sexual activity are no longer an offence above the age of 16. However, those who are at risk of significant harm due to vulnerability, continue to lack capacity to consent due to for example disability, where a sexual offence has occurred, or sexual abuse are offered protection under the Sexual Offences (Jersey) Law 2018 and the Children and Young People (Jersey) Law 2002.

Under the Sexual Offenses (Jersey) Law 2018, it is an offense for person ‘A’ (aged 18 years or over) to intentionally meet or travel with the intention of meeting a child aged 15 or younger, in any part of the world, if person ‘A’ has met or communicated with that child on at least one earlier occasion and person ‘A’ intends to commit a ‘relevant offense’ against that child either during or after the meeting.

The Sexual Offences (Jersey) Law 2018 deals with sexual offences against children and young people aged up to 18, where an adult is abusing a position of trust.

Positions of trust are defined where the adult is:

• Regularly involved in caring for, teaching, training, supervising;
• In sole charge of any children in premises. These premises being a children’s home, a school, a nursing home, or any institution in which a child is detained (for example, a teacher in charge of pupils in one school (is in a position of trust for all pupils in all schools in Jersey);
• Regularly involved in caring for, teaching, training, supervising or being in sole charge of the child on an individual basis;
• Regularly has unsupervised contact with a child due to the provision of public services required to safeguard the child;
• A person engaged on a professional or voluntary basis and not as a family member, either solely or with others, in coaching, motivating, guiding or training the child for a sport, hobby, career, or competitive event.

Where there is evidence of Abuse of Trust referral must be made to the Children and Families Hub, (see SPB Jersey Child Protection Procedures, SPB Jersey Referrals Procedure) and the guidance in the Multi-Agency Agency Managing Allegations Framework for Children followed.

NSPCC state when a child or young person is sexually exploited or abused, they're forced, tricked or manipulated into sexual activities, (find out more about what grooming is here). They might not understand what is happening is abuse or that it is wrong for the abuser to do this to them. They might be afraid to tell someone or behave as though this is normal for them. Sexual abuse can happen anywhere – and it can happen in person or online. 
Sexual abuse can be categorised into contact and non-contact abuse:

Contact abuse:

• Sexual touching of any part of a child’s body, whether the are clothed or not;
• Using a body part of object to rape or penetrate a child;
• Forcing a child to take part in sexual activities;
• Making a child undress or touch someone else;
• Contact abuse includes touching, kissing and oral sex – sexual abuse is not just penetrative.

Non-Contact Abuse:

• Exposing or flashing;
• Showing pornography;
• Exposing a child to sexual acts;
• Making them masturbate;
• Forcing a child to make, view or share child abuse images or videos;
• Making, viewing or distributing child abuse images or videos;
• Forcing a child to take part in sexual activities or conversations online through a smartphone.

It's never a child's fault they were sexually abused, and they cannot protect themselves from being criminally or sexually exploited. – it is important to make sure children and young people know this.

Please see SPB Safeguarding Practice Guidance and Core Procedures on – Responding to Abuse and Neglect, Child Sexual Abuse, Child Exploitation, Domestic Abuse, Bullying, Modern Slavery, Child Trafficking and Modern Slavery, Honour Based Violence, Domestic Abuse, Female Genital Mutilation.

To determine risk to a child or young person, the following factors should be considered.

This list is not exhaustive and other factors may be needed to be considered:

• Their age, capacity and if they present with added risk factors around vulnerability such as disability;
• Whether they can understand what sexual activity is;
• Whether they can understand the sexual activity they have experienced;
• The nature of the relationship between those involved, particularly if there are age or power imbalances or abuse of trust;
• Whether overt aggression, coercion or bribery was involved including use of substances/alcohol to disinhibit;
• Whether the young person's own use of substances, including alcohol, increases risk;
• If there have been any attempts to secure secrecy by their described sexual “partner.”  It is important to note that a young person may view a person who has groomed them as a “partner” and where practitioners view is that they have been abused or exploited;
• Whether their described sexual partner is known by the agency as having other concerning relationships with children or young people;
• If accompanied by an adult, does that person give them cause for concern;
• Whether the young person denies, minimises or accepts blame;
• Whether methods used to secure compliance and/or secrecy by the sexual partner are consistent with behaviours considered to be ‘grooming’;
• Whether sex has been used to gain favours or the young person has a lot of money or other valuable things which cannot be accounted for, (linked to criminal and sexual exploitation);
• Whether the child or young person has met this person in life, or this is a virtual partner and described as online “relationship”.

Practitioners must assess the wellbeing, health, development and welfare of children and young people and in all cases where they present with:

• Sexually transmitted disease;
• Behaviours which suggest trauma (Please see for example the Trauma Recovery Model);
• Risk of sexual abuse in the family environment, (of note children who are neglected are 3 times more likely to also have been sexually abused), see SPB Jersey Sexual Abuse in the Family Environment;
• Sexual behaviours which are outside of those seen to be safe and healthy (See SPB Jersey Harmful Sexual Behaviour);
• Indicators that they are being criminally or sexually exploited, (see Multi-Agency Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) Risk Screening Tool, SPB Jersey Child Sexual Exploitation, E-Safety: Children Exposed through Digital Media);
• Indicators the relationship they are in may be domestically abusive;
• Indicators of Female Genital Mutilation, Modern Slavery or Child Trafficking, Honour Based Violence or Forced Marriage (See SPB Jersey Safeguarding Practice Guidance). 
  
  Or
  
  
• Where a child falls pregnant.

If a child or young person has experienced child exploitation it is extremely important all practitioners use a common language to describe what is happening to them.

Sexual Behaviours – The Brook Traffic Light Tool

The Brook Traffic Light Tool differentiates childhood sexual development into 5 age groups, Online training is available for all staff and this can be accessed through Virtual College.
(See SPB Harmful Sexual Behaviours).

The Traffic Light Tool categorises children’s sexual behaviours:

• Green behaviours (Healthy);
• Amber behaviours (Concerning);
• Red behaviours (Harmful).

This tool helps practitioners to assess risk and make consistent and informed decisions about the actions required.

Please see the Continuum of Children’s Needs – as guidance to help practitioners identify a child’s level of need and how to respond appropriately.

Where a child (including an unborn child) or young person presents with a health or development need) or where there is a safeguarding Need (see Statutory Guidance – Levels of Need) practitioners must:

• Follow the SPB Child Protection Procedures and the SPB Children and Young People Safeguarding Referrals Procedure;
• Practitioners must refer to the Children and Families Hub;
• Where there is immediate risk of harm, practitioners must call the police on 999;
• Where a child may have been physically abused, suffered neglect or sexual abuse consideration must be given to following the Child Protection Medical Pathway and/or the Child Sexual Abuse Pathway;
• Where identifying a child at risk of significant harm there are also concerns a vulnerable adult, practitioners must raise a safeguarding concern with referral to the Single Point of Referral for Adults at risk of harm;
• In parallel where a young person or their carer/parents is at risk of domestic abuse, then consideration referral should be made with their consent to supportive domestic abuse services please see links below);
• Where a child is considered at risk of Child Sexual Exploitation, practitioners must complete the Multi-Agency Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) Risk Assessment Tool as soon as practicably possible (including where a child is already on a child protection plan), and submit a referral to the Children and Families HUB along with the CSE Risk Assessment Tool, as this enables decisions to be made as to whether that child or young person should have a Multi-Agency Sexual Exploitation Meeting (MASE) (see Multi-Agency Guidance for Child Sexual Exploitation);
• The Police must be notified as soon as possible when a criminal offence has been committed or is suspected of having been committed against a child unless there are exceptional reasons not to do so.

Where a professional does not feel secure in their decision making and time allows, they should seek supervision with their Designated Lead or Line Manager, discuss their concerns by calling the Children and Families HUB or the police.

Practitioners should explore with any young person presenting with indicators of domestic abuse, the safety of their relationship and assessing for indicators of domestic abuse and taking steps to protect the young person from risk of significant harm.

Consideration should be made to making referral to the Sexual Abuse Referral Centre – Dewberry House S.A.R.C, Jersey Domestic Abuse Services (JDAS) and/or Freedom from Domestic Abuse (FREEDA). It is not necessary to make a complaint to the police to access support from these services.

Brook Jersey Provides free, sexual health services for young people aged 20 and under which includes:

• Advice and provision of contraception (pill, implant, injection, patch, ring, condoms, emergency contraception);
• Coil fitting advice and counselling and referral to Le Bas for insertion either as routine or as emergency;
• Pregnancy testing and onward referral to Maternity or Termination of Pregnancy (TOP) clinic;
• STI infection testing and treatment, referral to GUM as appropriate;
• Treatment of other gynaecological infections including Herpes Thrush, BV, TV;
• Clinical history, examination, testing and management of gynaecological disorders with onward referral as appropriate;
• Sexual Health advice and onward referral to other agencies including JGH, YES, GUM CAMHS Children's Hub etc.
• Safeguarding assessment at every consultation and onward internal or external referral when appropriate, ongoing management;
• Blood tests if required to determine eligibility of a patient for contraception according to UKMEC prescribing criteria, or to determine pregnancy status in complex cases (betaHCG);
• Acne treatment;
• UTI management and treatment;
• Education work in schools and onsite counselling.

In working with children and young people, it must always be made clear to them that absolute confidentiality cannot be guaranteed, and that there will be some circumstances where the needs of the young person can only be safeguarded by sharing information with others.

In some cases, urgent action must be taken to safeguard their welfare.

In most circumstances there will need to be a process of information sharing and discussion to formulate an appropriate plan. There should be time for reasoned consideration to define the best way forward.

There may then be a need for further consultation with Children’s Service for the relevant area. All discussions should be recorded, giving reasons for action taken and who was spoken to.

Sharing information with parents and carers: - Decisions to share information with parents and carers will be taken using professional judgement, consideration of Fraser guidelines and in accordance with the statutory guidance on Information Sharing. Decisions will be based on the child’s age, maturity and ability to appreciate what is involved in terms of the implications and risks to themselves. This should be coupled with the parents’ and carers’ ability and commitment to protect the young person. Given the responsibility that parents have for the welfare of their children, practitioners should encourage children and young people, at all points, to share information with their parents and carers (where it is safe to do so).

Practitioners should have access to regular internal agency safeguarding supervision.

Agencies should consider multi-agency reflective supervision where cases are complex, stuck or drifting.

Professional challenge should be welcomed and partnership working depends on resolving professional difference and conflict as soon as possible. Where staff experience professional differences, they must follow the SPB Resolving Professional Difference/Escalation Policy.

Allegations against Staff or Volunteers Procedure

Enabling young people to access contraceptive and sexual health information and advice: Legal and Policy Framework for Social Workers, Residential Social Workers, Foster Carers and other Social Care Practitioners; (Department for Education (UK) Teenage Pregnancy Unit)

Best practice guidance for doctors and health professionals on the provision of advice and treatment to young people under 16 on contraception, sexual and reproductive health (Department of Health, UK)