IICSA Changemakers

Nov 2022

• First formal meeting of IICSA Changemakers (discussed and agreed collective action moving forward).

Dec 2022

• IICSA Changemakers terms of reference agreed, and structure set up (1. terms of reference).

January 2023

• Principles of approach agreed:

1. A powerful collective voice that builds on work of existing groups but goes beyond and across sectors to give a consistent and compelling set of messages to Governments and organisations. We also noted the need for that collective voice to take into account other recommendations/reviews in this space (particularly the Care Review and National Panel review) so our work is relevant and credible.
2. Taking forward the powerful evidence base and spirit of IICSA to prevent and tackle CSA. While recognising there are specific or detailed elements of recommendations we may disagree on as individuals/organisations, we should be uncompromising as to the need for a coherent package of improvements identifying areas of common priority we can move on together to ensure the work of IICSA as a whole motivates real change.
3. A convincing and strong response on policy from Governments to make sure change happens and for the group to keep the pressure up to ensure that happens. But not to overlook the importance of practice change in organisations (our own and beyond) to help demonstrate change is possible and the effective representation of victim and survivor voice.
4. Dedicated capacity to support the group to drive and coordinate activity and move more flexibly. While important to build on the resources and plans that individual organisations may already have, to seize the opportunity over the next year it was felt we needed to do something extra to facilitate collective efforts.
5. Ability for organisations to place themselves at the right level of input/influence/interest for them. Forming a core steering group to develop and propose collective work to the wider group and communicating our plans even more widely to stakeholders across the sector would give options for organisations and individuals.

February 2023

• Head of programmes started in the role part-time: Clare Kelly (2. biography).

March 2023

• 16 March Event: Safeguarding Children 2023 – Gabrielle Shaw NAPC Chief Executive speaking.
• DBS National Conference 29 March 2023 – Clare Kelly speaking.

April 2023

• Branding established, the teal colour to reflect healing and the strap line Taking action. Creating change. Preventing child sexual abuse.

May 2023

• NWG policy sessions held where practitioners from across sectors came together to support Changemakers in research for future Government consultation responses.
• Government response to the recommendations was issued and IICSA Changemaker’s responded through media work. The Government had said they accepted 19 of the 20 but IICSA Changemakers interpreted the action towards accepting the recommendations as only there for 3 of them.

Broadcast:

• BBC Radio 4 Today Programme
• Channel 4 News
• LBC News

Online:

• The Guardian: Child sexual abuse compensation scheme to be set up in England | UK child abuse inquiry | The Guardian
• The Evening Standard: New compensation scheme to be introduced for child abuse victims | Evening Standard
• ITV: Compensation scheme for child abuse victims to be set up following inquiry | ITV News
• Press Association: New compensation scheme to be introduced for child abuse victims (yahoo.com)

Key Social Highlights:

• The Children’s Society (followers: 93.7K) – Tweet
• Mark Russell, CEO at The Children’s Society followers: 15.8k) – Tweet
• Stop It Now! UK and Ireland (followers: 4.6k) – Tweet
• Press release hosted: https://www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/IICSA-changemakers

June 2023

• (3) Newsletter

July 2023

• Mandatory reporting survey and focus groups for the August submission conducted.

August 2023

• Mandatory Reporting consultation submission. (4. document).

September 2023

• CICA consultation response (5. document).

October 2023

• IICSA Changemakers attended the Party Conferences and met with parliamentarians.

November 2023

• One year on event: An event bringing together key stakeholders to both share progress made and plan for further action.
• Survivor Participation Manager started in post (8. biography).
• To mark the anniversary of one year on from the final recommendations paper we targeted our work:

1. (For Practitioners and service providers) IICSA Changemakers were keynotes at the NWG Annual conference 23 Oct
2. (For Practitioners and academics) IICSA Changemaker members took part in the Careknowledge webinar 30 Nov
3. (For survivors, the public and target audience for change) IICSA Changemakers released a media statement on 1 Nov (highlighting the lack of response or movement).

December 2023

• Gap analysis conducted of areas survivor voice was needed and where more stakeholders could support.

January 2024

• ONS consultation advice/feedback given — Changemakers provided feedback on their proposal for a survey on CSA prevalence. There was a large amount of concern around the safeguarding elements of it.
• Victims Bill event in parliament with survivor voice at the front of this important moment, sharing changemaker views with key parliamentarians ahead of key stages of the Bill

February 2024

• Response to Illegal Harms consultation was conducted with support from the NSPCC and IWF (11).
• Changemaker members were at many events at the start of 2024:

1. NAPAC, Hydrant and NPCC were at the Vulnerability and Knowledge Conference sharing their work and focus on survivors.
2. Barnardo's were at Preventing Exploitation.
3. Save the children hosted IICSA Changemakers for a bespoke look at safeguarding.
4. Care Knowledge wanted to work with Marie Collins again on a specific focus they got from last year’s event with several members and interviewed their CEO directly.
5. Pier webinars and pier conference were attended by many changemakers and IICSA Changemakers ran an information stall to engage with global partners.

• (12) Newsletter.

March 2024

• Survivor advisory community formed. TOR and code of conduct, joining forms and DPIA all established for a safe approach to survivor engagement and participation (12a, 12b, 12c, 12d).
• Mandatory reporting consultation two submitted (13).

April 2024

• IICSA Changemakers featured in the BACP newsletter.
• Mandatory Reporting survey issued for third consultation.

May 2024

• In May 2024 the Victims Bill amendment wins were achieved. 8 out of 10 amendments that were put forward were won (15. document).
• Work with survivors on establishing the focus for Changemakers for the next financial year through briefing sessions.
• Response to consultation outcome on Mandatory reporting was issued by the Government.
• Law of apologies consultation was submitted utilising evidence from NAPACs work (16).
• (17) Newsletter.

July 2024

• General election – Letters to new parliamentarians from Changemakers.
• Community café drop-in sessions began.
• Survivor Participation Manager went full time.
• Response to Kings speech was issued (18).
• Letter to Lord Chancellor re: isva funding issued.
• Statement from Maggie Blyth made about VAWG at an epidemic level.

August 2024

• During August there was significant work with survivors to prepare for the September event to mark two years on from the final report of IICSA. A detailed booklet and snapshot video of the event were created with survivors to showcase their expertise on actions still needed to be taken.

September 2024

• Survivor event ‘In our time’ – Child sexual abuse victims and survivors share their expertise as we approach two years on from the final IICSA report (19. event booklet, 20. event video, 21. event feedback and summary).
  One survivor shared a poem with Changemakers about her experience at the event (22. Bryony’s poem).
• Community café drop-in sessions were run and specific de briefs held with survivors after their large contribution to running the September event.
• Survivor input was also required for the direction of the ‘Spending review submission’ (23).
• Dr Ford, supervised by Dr Taggart (both of whom worked on IICSA) was conducting research on “Neurodiverse Childhood Sexual Abuse survivors’ experiences of accessing support services”. Several of our community gave interviews with her in order to help contribute to this piece of research.

October 2024

• Head of programmes went fulltime for IICSA Changemakers.
• Survivor participation manager supported ‘voice of the victim consultation’ work from VKPP and Hydrant.
• (24) Digital Zine.
• (25) Newsletter.
• When You Are Ready campaign launches, designed by Changemakers member Hydrant (26. When You Are Ready – CSE Taskforce National Campaign | The Hydrant Programme).

November 2024

• To celebrate Sir Peter Wanless’s leadership of the IICSA Changemakers the Survivor participation manager and Head of Programs worked with him on an NSPCC podcast with a focus on IICSA Changemakers ( Episode 68 Podcast on child protection | NSPCC Learning).
• Reflections on IICSA by Peter – (NSPCC archive video).
• Peter’s leaving event at Parliament focused on the importance to move forward with the recommendations to protect children.
• Rape crisis held their annual conference and invited IICSA Changemakers to speak about where the recommendations were and where focus needed to be.
• After attending the September survivor event colleagues from Government departments asked to work with IICSA Changemakers on two key products. A paper looking at how the Victim Code of Practice could be best used to support survivors and what excellent service looked like in relation to recommendation 16 of IICSA. From this survey, focus groups and interviews were conducted to gain the research needed. (28b. Workstream briefing document for survivors).

December 2024

• Participation Evaluation survey was opened to the Survivor Advisory Community seeking overarching feedback about their time in Changemakers, areas of improvement, how effective the trauma informed practice is etc. If Changemakers continued this data would feed into our reflective practice and evolution of participation activities (28c).
• Winter messages from changemakers to survivors were sent to thank them for a really busy year (28d).

January 2025

• In January 2025 there was significant movement on the IICSA recommendations fuelled after global interest in the lack of response to survivors of child sexual abuse.

On 6 and 16 January the Home Secretary made commitments about IICSA. Later in February the Justice Minister also spoke to significant justice changes. We have highlighted the key commitments below. It’s really important to focus on language. The Government have not said they will deliver all 20 recommendations, they used the term ‘take forward’ and gave a commitment to come back before Easter with a timeline for taking those actions forward. The below were the commitments they could give detail to:

Review of older cases

Survivors and victims will be able to ask for their closed cases to be reviewed by an independent criminal justice review panel where their previous investigations were not taken forward to prosecution by the police or Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

The Home Secretary has asked the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) to request this review activity and to look again at these unsolved and closed cases of group-based offending. The ask was also for policing to focus on better data collection and gave them £2.5m in funding for this work.

Locally led inquiries

The Government committed £5 million to locally led investigations for Local Authorities.

National Audit

A ‘rapid national audit’ to uncover the scale and profile of group-based offending in the UK today, including ethnicity.

The audit will be led by Baroness Louise Casey to examine existing data and evidence to draw a picture of the nature, scale and profile of group-based child sexual abuse offending identified by police and agencies, with an ambition to equip law enforcement with the information and understanding they need to combat these specific crimes. The cost is £2.5 million.

Survivor Panel

The audit will be supported by an expert advisory board and draw on the views of victims and survivors.

Mandatory reporting

They have said that a form of mandatory reporting will be brought into legislation. The new bills are expected to start coming through the legislative system in the spring.

Removal of three-year time limit

They have removed the three-year time limit for child sexual abuse victims and survivors to seek compensation in England and Wales.

Shifting the Burden of Proof: A Fairer System for Survivors

Under new measures, the ‘burden’ (a word to describe who the onus is on) will shift to defendants to prove that a fair trial is no longer possible due to the passage of time, rather than survivors having to justify why they did not come forward sooner. 

Law of apologies

The Law of the Apologies will also be amended to encourage employers to apologise to people wronged by their employees, where currently they fear doing so because of institutional liability, meaning that victims are likelier to receive apologies from schools, care facilities or hospitals for abuse carried out by an individual at these institutions.

These are all really good steps in the right direction but are not everything that IICSA Changemakers have been pushing for. We heard nothing in the announcements about services and support for current or future survivors.

In response to the announcements IICSA Changemakers mobilised and engaged with parliamentarians and the media. The following items were produced:

A survivor spoke directly to House magazine through an Op Ed (29. Nicky’s Victim and survivor voices must be heard – stop the political point-scoring).

Our survivors were quoted in newspapers – Nicky’s comments in the Guardian (30. Religion, police and education leaders unite with grooming survivors to demand immediate government action | The Independent).

Press releases were issued (31a) and an open Letter to the Home Secretary (31b) shared by Changemakers asking for focus on survivors during this time.

Survivors wrote to Jess Phillips MP themselves to share their views on the ending of IICSA Changemakers:

• Baroness Grey-Thompson presented her private members’ bill on Mandatory Reporting and referenced the work of IICSA Changemakers in the opening and close. (32. Regulated and Other Activities (Mandatory Reporting – Hansard – UK Parliament)
• ‘The Seventh Magpie’ by Adam Rainford released. We provided an endorsement that was included in the book as Adam is a member of our Survivor Advisory Community. (The Seventh Magpie – A true story of revelation, healing and justice: Rainford, Adam)

“Adam’s book courageously describes his experiences of going through the criminal justice system. He speaks about the immense impact that child sexual abuse has had on his emotional and physical self, his family, his work and all aspects of his life. As IICSA Changemakers, we stand firmly with all victim-survivors of child sexual abuse. We support Adam in using his experiences to shine a light on the impact of child sexual abuse and the societal changes we need to prevent and respond better to the abuse of children. We hope that Adam’s book will show to all survivors; you are not alone, you deserve to be listened to and thriving in life (not just surviving) is possible.”

February 2025

• Participation evaluation survey results analysed.
• (33) Newsletter.
• Further debriefing sessions for the closure of Changemakers.
• A risk log was utilised to support mitigations for the ending of Changemakers.

March 2025

Evidence was submitted to the VAWG Home affairs select committee inquiry on funding (34).

• The two papers created at request of Government departments were published: (35. Victim Code of Practice; 36. Services).

The methodology for the research on both papers was:

“Nothing about us, without us”

We recognise that victims and survivors are not all the same and not every individual who has experienced child sexual abuse will resonate with the term ‘survivor’. For continuity in this document, we will use the word ‘survivor’ but we want to powerfully acknowledge that this is not a label that defines a person.

The IICSA Changemakers Survivor Advisory Community are a group of 31 adult survivors of Child Sexual Abuse that collaborate, shape and influence the work of the wider Changemaker group. All members sign up to a Code of Conduct and Terms of Reference upon joining to ensure that the safety and confidentiality boundaries of the group are upheld and proactively protected.

Supported by the Survivor Participation Manager, all members can choose what level and layer of participation they wish to engage with. This includes choosing the spectrum of disclosure and identity they wish to share within the work. Participation and consent can be withdrawn at any time without reprisal or judgement. 

Our ethos is to uphold trauma informed, strength based, survivor centred approaches. In practice, this means recognising that survivors are not just the abuse they have experienced; but are whole, complex, nuanced and wonderful human beings that have a range of skills and expertise to be able to offer. It also means that the Survivor Participation Manager (SPM) continually engages with anti-racist and intersectional learning around violence and abuse to ensure that unconscious bias does not compromise the integrity of the participation. The SPM themselves has extensive and authentic understanding of the experiences of survivors of child sexual abuse.

Safeguarding, risk management and boundaries are holistically embedded into the work we do to make sure that survivor safety (physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual) is at the forefront of all activities and requests. Healing is not a linear or binary feeling or process; we recognise that survivor wellbeing could be affected by their participation work so debriefs and peer support spaces are offered.

Stage one was an anonymous survey and focus group work to listen to themes, reflections and begin to forge a direction for our more intensive work upcoming in stage two.

Stage two was work with a group of survivors from the IICSA Changemaker Survivor Advisory Community who analysed the results from stage one and took them to the next level by explaining the context, sharing their expertise and diving into focussed areas. This level of insight and understanding was then applied by the IICSA Changemaker team to engage a range of practitioners and gain their views on the same areas.

• BBC Radio 4 Documentary Podcast ‘The Endemic Truth’ Four of our survivor community gave their expertise to a BBC documentary to share what still needs to be done about Child Sexual Abuse.
• As IICSA Changemakers comes to a close the participation manager held numerous events of support: Final community café, a Listening circle, Ending debriefing sessions and thank you letters issued, and membership confirmation letters to our survivor community.
• 31 March 2025 Closure of Survivor Advisory Community and IICSA Changemakers.

If you are concerned about a child, please contact the NSPCC Helpline for advice and information.

If a child is in immediate danger please call 999.

If you are an adult seeking support for yourself, please call 0808 801 0331​ to speak to NAPAC.

The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC) is the UK’s only dedicated national support service for adult survivors of all forms of childhood abuse. Our mission is to provide specialist, confidential support that empowers survivors to heal and thrive.