The Australian child sexual abuse attitudes, knowledge and response study

This is the first nationally representative survey of its kind in Australia. It will address key gaps in our understanding of current community attitudes towards, knowledge of, and capacity to respond to child sexual abuse and meet victims and survivors’ needs. Results will be used to inform the development and delivery of novel community awareness and education initiatives. Initiatives may target, for instance, improved understanding and identification of child sexual abuse indicators and risk factors or the ability and confidence to respond appropriately upon learning of child sexual abuse. Such work will contribute to the prevention of child sexual abuse and generate more compassionate and trauma-informed responses to victims and survivors thereby enabling their healing and recovery. Repeated survey administration will enable the evaluation of the initiatives’ effectiveness in reaching its objectives.

The National Centre will publish research findings in a publicly available report and in peer-reviewed journals.