Splintered Lives - Barnardo's

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chapter
13 One important factor that Finkelhor et al's (1988) work highlights is that 64% of the day
care abuse cases involved media coverage, and for half of them it was extensive. Cases
involving multiple perpetrators also increased the likelihood of a strongly mobilised
defence. In a number of these cases, where parents were not the abusers, they
mobilised in support of their children and there were considerable imparts on the local
community. These actions all affected the investigation and subsequent legal
proceedings, enabling defence lawyers to argue that children's testimony had been
contaminated. This also makes these cases different and requires different skills and
responses to those we have developed so far. For example, child protection agencies
need to have a press strategy; staying silent helps neither agency staff nor children.
Some organisations have attempted to develop screening mechanisms for 'paedophile'
job applicants (see, for example, McCormack and Selvaggio, 1989). Many take the form
of 'personality tests'. These are blunt instruments which skilled abusers would have little
difficulty circumventing, whereas naive applicants who have not abused children might
be caught by. One we have seen, for example, includes as some of its elements having a
history of sexual abuse, having little social contact as a teenager, and a preference for
working with children with a history of abuse. Many adult survivors of sexual abuse
would check off all three, and it may therefore penalise those who are using their past as
a resource for understanding and support of others in the present. If screening protocols
are to be developed they need to be done in such a way that they guard against the
dangers outlined above.
In preference to that approach we would recommend developing an ethos within
organisations which communicates to employees, carers and children that an
awareness of the potential for abuse exists. Alongside this structures should be in place
for investigation of allegations and suspicions. Where a case is founded it is grounds for
dismissal/removal and cases will always be reported. What the last few years have
taught us is that where agencies make clear they are serious about listening to
children/survivors, that adults will not be protected where they have abused trust, some
children will come forward. This is one of the ways in which we will create contexts in
which there is zero tolerance of abuse.