Recent cases of prolific alleged child sexual abuse in Melbourne and other Australian early childhood education and care settings have shocked even experienced people who work to prevent child sexual abuse. Parents are right to be outraged, scared and uncertain.
The most pressing issue, then, is what we do about it.
Regulation and practice is still falling short, despite all our knowledge and prior recommendations. We have the benefit of the gold-standard Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (including Volume 6 on making institutions child-safe). We can also draw on rigorous scientific work about how best to prevent child sexual abuse in child and youth-serving organisations.
