Collaboration with yourtown on a digital health response to child sexual abuse or exploitation

Investigators

Collaboration between the Knowledge and Performance team at yourtown and Jacqui Stewart, Professor Daryl Higgins, Lottie Harris and Gabby Hunt at the Institute of Child Protection Studies, Australian Catholic University

Funding

yourtown

Aims

To assist with the design and piloting of a service delivery model that enables appropriate responses to child sexual abuse

Background

With partial funding from Westpac, yourtown set out to design a digital health response for children and young people who have been sexually abused or exploited or are at risk of sexual abuse or exploitation.

The project was named Bini Wang-Gu, following consultations with an Elder from Juggera Country. Bini Wang-Gu means a structure or program for the purposes of growing understandings, educating, providing support and tools for healing and positive futures.

yourtown partnered with the Institute of Child Protection Studies (ICPS) to supplement their practice wisdom with research and evaluation expertise.

Project details

ICPS supported the yourtown Knowledge and Performance team on this project in two ways:

1. Community of Practice (CoP): Professor Daryl Higgins contributed to the Bini Wang-Gu CoP. yourtown facilitated the CoP to build cross-sector knowledge and enhance practice, integration, and innovation.
2. Tools and resources: We collaboratively developed tools and resources to guide and inform the design and delivery of the model and complementary capacity building initiatives, including:

• Program on a page: a visual representation of how the planned activities and outputs of the digital response contributed to the realisation of desired
• An audit tool: a simple assessment tool for individuals/organisations in the youth-serving sector to assess their capacity and capabilities to prevent and respond to children abuse and sexual exploitation.
• Resource map: a record of information, supports and services to build or strengthen capabilities to identify and respond to child abuse and sexual exploitation.

Projected community impact

Our collaboration was founded on a commitment to evidence-informed practice. Together we explored and collated different types of evidence (e.g., practice wisdom, and research evidence) and developed resources to inform the design of the digital health response. Our work established a strong foundation for an initiative that yourtown will progress to prevent and ensure effective responses to child sexual abuse and exploitation for children and young people using the Kids Helpline.

Links

yourtown

Kids Helpline

Project timeline

October 2021 to January 2024

Contact

For more information contact: icps@acu.edu.au