Learning from the experts: young people’s perspectives on how we can support healthy child development after sexual abuse

我们知道，性虐待的经历会影响心理健康和幸福感，但我们不太清楚应该如何做，什么时候应该尝试和解决这些影响，并帮助年轻人在遭受虐待后“重回正轨”。这项研究试图通过为年轻人创造机会，让他们安全而有意义地告诉我们他们认为会有帮助的东西，从而解决知识上的差距。这项研究特别关注那些在青春期经历过性虐待的年轻人，因为他们的需求尤其缺乏研究，我们不能假设对小时候经历过性虐待的人有效的方法，也适用于年长得多的人。这项研究采用了所谓的“参与式行动研究”方法。这意味着我们与年轻人和其他关键利益攸关方合作，共同寻找解决方案，并成为研究过程中的合作伙伴。我们将共同努力：·绘制青春期受到性虐待的年轻人的心理健康和幸福支持需求图；·了解我们如何更好地支持识别和应对这些需求；·了解我们如何建设和支持年轻人的复原力，并帮助他们在遭受虐待后“重回正轨”；·证明，如果处理得当，让年轻人参与·关于这些问题的讨论是安全和适当的--并创建一个其他人可以用来这样做的模板；·开发一个思考这些问题的更好模式；·为年轻人、父母/照顾者和专业人员创造实用资源，这将有助于今后更好地应对这一问题。我们将通过与30-40名年轻人以小组形式创造性地合作，在持续的一段时间内深入探讨这些问题，与父母/照顾者和专业人员探讨相同的问题，然后将所有这些小组聚集在一起，探索创造性的解决方案，从而做到这一点。为了更好地了解目前应对青春期性虐待的背景和挑战，我们还将进行10至15个更深入的案例研究-这将包括我们审查服务案例档案，并采访参与其中的年轻人和专业人员。我们还将审查这一领域的现有研究，以确保我们的研究增加了价值。然后，我们将分析这两个不同研究阶段的所有信息，并产生一系列的结果。这些将包括针对不同受众的研究报告，实践中使用的工具，以及分享我们发现的知识以及我们如何与其他研究人员合作的学术文章。

We know that an experience of sexual abuse impacts mental health and well-being, however we are less clear about how what should be done, and when, to try and address these impacts and help young people ‘get back on track’ following abuse. This research seeks to address this gap in knowledge by creating opportunities for young people to safely and meaningfully tell us what they think would help. The research focuses particularly on young people whose experience of sexual abuse occurred during adolescence as their needs are particularly under-researched and we cannot assume that what works for someone who experiences sexual abuse as a younger child will work for someone who experiences it at a much older age. The research adopts what is called a ‘participatory action research’ approach. This means we work with young people, and other key stakeholders, to find solutions together and become partners in the research process. Together we will seek to: • map the mental health and well-being support needs of young people who experience sexual abuse in adolescence; • learn how we can better support identification of, and responses to, these needs; • find out how we can build and support young people’s resilience and help them ‘get back on track’ after abuse; • demonstrate that, if done right, it is both safe and appropriate to involve young people in • discussions about these issues - and create a template that others can use to do this; • develop a better model for thinking about these issues; and • create practical resources for young people, parents/carers and professionals that will contribute to better responses to this issue in the future. We will do this through working creatively with 30-40 young people in small groups over a sustained period of time to explore these issues in depth, exploring the same issues with parents/carers and professionals, and then bringing all of these groups together to explore creative solutions. In order to better understand the context and challenges of current responses to sexual abuse in adolescence, we will also undertake 10-15 more in-depth case studies - this will involve us reviewing services case files and interviewing the young people and professionals involved in these. We will also review existing research in this field to make sure we are adding value with our study. We will then analyse all of the information that has come either of these different stages of the research and produce a series of outputs. These will include research reports for different audiences, tools for use in practice and academic articles that share learning about what we find and how we did this with other researchers.