As communicated in October, the Home Office, with support from Department for Education, ran a grant competition to identify a service provider to deliver the Harmful Sexual Behaviour Support Service. I am delighted to announce that South West Grid for Learning (SWGfL), in partnership with the Marie Collins Foundation, were successful in their bid. Both delivery partners have worked at a considerable pace, and have now launched the Harmful Sexual Behaviour Support Service.

The England-wide service provides the tools to equip and empower education and wider safeguarding practitioners to address the alarming normalisation of harmful sexual behaviour in children and young people. The telephone and email support is available Monday – Friday, 8 am to 8 pm on 0344 255 0623 or at [email protected]

The service will provide:

1. Advice on individual cases or incidents of harmful sexual behaviour, to ensure an appropriate response both for children displaying this behaviour and others affected by it
2. Guidance on policy development on tackling harmful sexual behaviour
3. Relevant resources, best practice and contacts around harmful sexual behaviour, both locally and nationally

If in the course of conducting your work, you come across opportunities to alert professionals to the launch and availability of this service, we would be very grateful for the support. We can send over a draft text for newsletters if helpful, or you can reshare social media assets being posted throughout the week on the SWGfL platforms.

Additionally, to further our work and to effectively action the commitment made in the Tackling Child Sexual Abuse Strategy, we will be establishing a small working group for organisations leading on HSB to share practice, emerging learning and future plans. As such, learning from existing projects, including the key issues professionals are seeking support on, will be used to develop future policy. Please get in touch if you are doing specific work with education or safeguarding professionals around HSB and would like to be involved in this group.

Please contact [email protected] or [email protected] for more information or if you’d like to get involved.