Spotlight Sessions - ​ Responding with Confidence & Compassion: Supporting Disclosures of Child Sexual Abuse

Welcome to our Spotlight session!

Spotlight sessions are a series of multi-agency interactive workshops, that will be running throughout the year.

These sessions will be focusing on areas to enhance discussion, ability and knowledge to engage and work alongside children, young people, families and colleagues. It’s a chance to be able to link in with other professionals, talk through and explore the importance of the topics covered, as well as capture the impacts it can have and how we can create better outcomes for those families we come in to contact with.

In this Spotlight session, we will be hosting a workshop focusing on Responding with Confidence & Compassion: Supporting Disclosures of Child Sexual Abuse , to build confidence in your response to a disclosure from a child or young person when they share their story about their lived experience of sexual harm/abuse.

This spotlight session will be facilitated by Jodie Pierson from Barnardo’s. Jodie is the Team Manager for the Somerset Phoenix project & a Practice Lead in CSA. Jodie has a passion for relationship-based support for children, young people, and families and is motivated to ensure that all CSA survivors experience a positive and compassionate response from professionals when they choose to trust you with their story.

This session will consider best practice advice and guidance on ‘what to say’ post disclosure and give space to explore our own feelings & potential worries about hearing a child or young person tell their story.  Providing you with the opportunity..

• To feel more open to listening to children and young people sharing their lived experiences of CSA.
• To understand the CSA response pathway and how this links with your professional role.
• To consider who you respond to, both verbal and non-verbal disclosures of CSA.
• Reflect on how you balance a compassionate, child-led response alongside safeguarding responsibilities.

Come and get involved in this informal session to help spark creativity, develop or widen your knowledge and share practice amongst others to help us make a difference.