The role of friends in the lives of children and young people experiencing abuse. Debbie Allnock, Research Fellow The International Centre Researching Child Sexual Exploitation. trafficking and Violence The University of Bedfordshire NSPCC

1. “They’de very much picked up on
the change in my behaviour”: the
role of friends in the lives of children
and young people experiencing
abuse
Debbie Allnock, Research Fellow
The International Centre: Researching child sexual
exploitation, trafficking and violence
The University of Bedfordshire
Prepared for: BASPCAN conference April 2015

2. The study asked "who do you turn to?" but note the
shift in focus of the title!
Key areas of exploration were:
• The informal support structures (family, friends)
• Child protection/safeguarding services (police,
social work)
• Other formal support structures (teachers, etc)
Our understanding of disclosure went beyond a ‘one
off telling’ definition. Using Alaggia (2004) of
accidental, purposeful, prompted/elicited, behavioural
and indirect verbal attempts
Key Aims/Definitions

3. Methodology
• Mixed methods study of disclosures of abuse
• 60 young adults
• Recruitment
• 13 participants who had taken part in earlier NSPCC child
maltreatment study (only qualitative follow ups)
• Remainder were recruited via NSPCC website, universities,
and services
• Tools:
• NSPCC child maltreatment survey (CASI) (demographics and
abuse and victimisation experiences; 43 types across different
domains using adapted JVQ)
• Interview guide for qualitative follow ups (disclosure
experiences and journeys)
• Ethics
• NSPCC ethical approval
• 30£ high street voucher
• Follow-up support available from counsellor (4 x telephone
sessions)

4. The young adults
• 7 males, 53 females
• 92% White British
• 43% reported a disability (most reported ‘other’ in the survey
but did not specify)
• 10% reported special educational needs
• High rates of victimisation reported in survey (across 43 types
of victimisation/abuse)
• 92% reported peer violence
• 94% reported physical violence
• 92% reported having witnessed domestic violence
• 95% reported having experienced CSA (only 73% told us about
this in the follow ups)
• 84% reported having witnessed community violence
• 82% considered to be ‘poly-victims’ (15+ types of
victimisation/abuse)

5. Perceived social support from
friends and family
• Quantitative survey data (Friends)
• How often is this true about relationships? (Never (1), sometimes
(2), usually (3) and always (4) with total of 16) (mean score of
10.35)
• My friends really tried to help me (2.67)
• I could count on my friends when things went wrong
• I had friends with whom I could share my good times and bad (2.68)
• I could talk about my problems with my friends (2.33)
• Quantitative survey data (Family)
• How often is this true about relationships? (Never (1), sometimes
(2), usually (3) and always (4) with total of 16) (mean score of 8.9)
• My family really tried to help me (2.44)
• My family let me know they cared about me
• I could talk to my family about my problems (1.67)
• My family was willing to help me make decisions

6. Actual support from friends
Noticing and
sharing
concerns
(25%) Contextualising
experiences through
friends (16%)
Post-disclosure support
Emotional
support
(n=17) Encouragement
to disclose
(n=14)
Offering a
safe place to
stay (n=13)
Providing
morale
support
(n=12)
Reciprocal
solidarity
(n=11)Disclosure on
behalf of CYP
(n=6)
Initiation of legal steps;
contacting therapeutic
support; and intervening
(n=3 or fewer)

7. Noticing and sharing concerns
(25%ofthesample)
“There were just like outward signs like I used
to self-harm as well through that time and like
one of my friends knew about that and she
erm, used to ring Childline a lot ‘cause she were
worried about me” (Female sexually abused by
her cousin)
“They used to ask why my dad had such control over
me. I like being digged with nails in my back, a bit
weird and it, and my dad had long nails and I used to
ask him to do it, and I remember speaking to my friend
who I actually told about it, and he said like ‘don’t you
reckon it’s weird that your dad will do that to his
daughter?’” (Female sexually and physically abused by
her father)

8. Contextualising experiences through
friends (16% of the sample)
• 83% of the sample discussed their cognitive understanding of
their abuse experiences
• 10 participants came to ‘understand’ their experiences as
wrong or abusive during interactions with friends
“Probably think about the age of twelve, I started to hear
things from my friends about kissing and boyfriends, and
realised I knew way more about it than they did” (Female
sexually abused by her cousin)

9. Disclosure to friends
• Friends and mothers were the most common sources of
disclosure among informal sources of support
• Of those who disclosed SA under the age of 18 (n=38), 14
young people had made 16 disclosures to friends; 8 of those
who disclosed other forms of abuse disclosed to friends (most
common)
• Nearly all were direct, verbal disclosures (2 were impulsive
and one was prompted by a friend)
• All were delayed, and made over the age of 12
• Seven were made to seek help; five were made to seek
emotional support; three participants were uncertain why
they disclosed to friends; one was made to protect a sibling

10. Post-disclosure support
(emotional support)
• Some were selective though.....
“A few of me closest friends knew, and basically they were
there, are still there, and I know that they are there”
(Female sexually abused by her step-father)
“My friend across the road, she knew
everything like, I’ve spoken to her
about a lot of it, but like certain
people I tend to keep it back ‘cause I
don’t really want them to know unless
I'm really good friends with them”
(Female sexually and physically
abused by her step father)

11. Post-disclosure support (encouragement to
disclose and disclosing on behalf of CYP)
• Encouragement to disclose
• Disclosing on behalf of CYP
“When she found out, we talked for a little while, but it, you know
I think she got to the point where she was like, 'Someone needs to
know about this'....and being there with her and her just saying,
like 'We're telling someone now, this is not a choice anymore,
you've got to do it, you can't stay there' (Female who witnessed
severe DV between her parents)
“The physical and sexual abuse it just got worse.
Um, I ended up disclosing it to a friend at school
who passed it on to a teacher” (Female sexually
and physically abused by father)

12. Post-disclosure support
(Offering a safe place to stay)
“I left, and that was that. So I stayed with friends for a few
weeks, and then, it was over the Christmas holiday, on...like,
Christmas Eve. So I left, stayed with friends, various friends
for a few weeks, and then when I went back to school, and
spoke to child protection” (Female emotionally and
physically abused by her mother)

13. Post-disclosure support (Providing
morale support; reciprocal solidarity)
• Morale support
• Reciprocal solidarity
“I went to the doctor and I sort of said to him I feel really
down now and again. I wrote some notes down because I
didn’t wanna actually tell him so I wrote some notes down
and my best friend came with me and then she sort of like
read them out and he took the notes and read them himself”
(Female sexually abused by grandfather)
“Some of my friends I know I’ve talked to about things
like that in the past and there's a couple of my friends
who've been through similar experiences and they've
come to me asking me for help and I’ve drawn upon
what's happened in my past and then try and help
them” (Male physically and emotionally abused by
mother)

14. Unhelpful actions by friends
• Friends being perceived to:
• act insensitively to disclosures;
• be un-empathetic;
• or fail to understand how to react to disclosures.
• Additionally, some participants described:
• Having been ‘turned on’ by their friends,
• Being disbelieved by their friends,
• or were bullied emotionally or physically following disclosures.
Participants reported that these unhelpful actions by friends often led to
reduced trust of others in their networks, and as young adults, some
participants still withheld their experiences from friends for fear of similar
reactions.

15. Conclusions
• Consistent with the literature in that:
• Friends were more important in adolescence than in childhood
• They demonstrated higher perceived support from friends than
family
• Friends were important in recognising worrying behaviour or
signs and symptoms before they were aware that abuse was
actually occurring
• Some young people contextualise and understand their
experiences by their friends experiences
• There are a range of emotional and practical ways in which
friends are supportive and helpful post-disclosure

16. Recommendations
• Consistent development and delivery of programmes that
educate young people on how they can respond sensitively,
safely and effectively to their friends
• Need to continue improving on professional responses which
can be less than optimal; indeed damaging.
• Future research engaging young survivor’s friends to
understand the barriers they face; concerns they hold