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Therapeutic Services (Abused Children)

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this Adjournment debate on an issue that should be of supreme importance to every Member of the House and every person in our society. The sexual abuse of children is not new in our generation, but perhaps it is more spoken about and more open than ever before. The more it is spoken about and the more open it is, the more society begins to realise the devastating consequences for children and young people who go through the experience. The reality of the impact on the child or young person should be outrageous enough for us to believe that we need to act. However, we should remember that the impact is often lasting for the child or young person’s future life. We should also remember that those children and young people often become parents, and that that damaging experience as a child can affect their experience of parenting and bringing up their own families. That is not the only horrendous impact on children and young people. There is also an impact inter-generationally, and on our community and society in a variety of ways. As my hon. Friend has said, there is strong evidence to suggest that if we can intervene quickly and early and ensure that such children and young people have access to appropriate professional and therapeutic services, the economic and financial gains are indisputable. Failure to do that will lead not only to many more members of society being incredibly damaged, but to a knock-on effect on the social fabric and economic success of our country. Early intervention, and understanding the importance and power of the issue is incredibly important. We must still ensure that in the context of any debate about the sexual abuse of children we must first do everything in our power to use all the resources at our disposal to minimise for every child the risk of being sexually abused. We still have responsibilities to ensure that the social and health care system works properly in an integrated way to safeguard children to maximum effect. We all know of the horrendous cases that are highlighted in the media, and we also know that 99 per cent. of the function that social workers fulfil leads to the protection of many children at risk. In debates such as this, we should pay tribute to the professionals on the front line who battle every day to support some of our most vulnerable children. No Member of this House, however hard we work, can totally understand the emotional experience of being a professional social worker in child care, perhaps with a case load of 20, 30 or more children and young people who are at risk of being or have been abused. The system has grotesquely let down children in some circumstances, and those circumstances have been brought to the attention of this House and our society over the years. The everyday heroes who protect children in a most remarkable way are rarely given credit in such debates. We must consider the progress that has been made in recent times. Having reflected on that progress, we must consider how we can do even better in the future. I shall spend a couple of minutes articulating some of the positive action that has been taken to try to improve the situation for children who have been sexually abused. The Department of Health, together with the Mental Health Foundation, has funded a study into psychotherapy for girls aged six to 14 who have been sexually abused. It will not come as any surprise to my hon. Friend or to other Members that the study found high rates of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. For those children psychotherapy was an effective treatment, and in those circumstances it had lasting benefits. In my days as Minister with responsibility for young people, which seem like a long time ago, I spent a lot of time during 2001-02 just talking to young people. One experience that shocked me were conversations with young girls, who frequently told me that self-harm was a major issue among themselves and their friends. We, as a society, have not even begun to highlight or to focus on that issue or on what is happening in the real world. However, I do not want to be misquoted: I am not saying that self-harm is always related to sexual abuse, because that would be entirely misleading and inappropriate. There is, none the less, evidence that some self-harm is directly related to children and young people who are being sexually abused. I wanted to use the debate to flag up the issue of self-harm among youngsters, and to say that throughout the Government, we have a responsibility to take it seriously. I shall move on to other developments. In November 2006, our Department and the Department for Education and Skills published a report that considered the progress made in promoting the mental health and psychological well-being of children and young people. It highlighted that although CAMHS has made enormous strides in recent years in helping more children and families, and in doing so more promptly, there is still a need for substantial improvements to services. Information from the CAMHS mapping exercise for 2005 shows that in the last three years the number of CAMHS staff has increased by more than 40 per cent., and that the number of cases seen also increased by more than 40 per cent. During the same period, recorded annual expenditure on CAMHS increased from £283 million to more than £500 million. I remain committed to ensuring that we continue that progress. We will report very soon not only on the target that we set for the development of CAMHS services throughout the country, but on how I intend to maintain the pressure in the system, particularly in the health service, to ensure that once the target period is over we keep our eye on the ball to maintain investment and to focus on the importance of CAMHS services. It simply will not be enough to say, ““Here is the target and here is our report on how we have done against it.”” The prioritisation of CAMHS services in the national health service is equally important. We work closely with the Department for Education and Skills on those issues. We also work with other organisations. For example, with the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence we are working on guidance on the identification and recognition of all forms of child abuse. Guidelines are expected in late 2008. We are working with the Home Office, the DFES, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and other voluntary sector organisations, providing services for sexually abused children through the joint Department of Health and National Institute for Mental Health in England victims of violence and abuse prevention programme. The objective is to equip professionals and services to identify and respond to the needs of children and adolescents who have been sexually abused, raped or sexually assaulted, or of victims of sexual exploitation through prostitution, pornography and trafficking. I look forward to seeing the national service guidelines that the programme will publish later this year on therapeutic and preventive interventions with sexually abused and exploited children. With the Home Office, the Department of Health has been supporting the establishment of sexual assault referral centres, a joint service for victims of rape and sexual assault provided locally by health and police services and the voluntary sector. St. Mary’s hospital in Manchester and The Havens in London, as my hon. Friend has said, have piloted children’s services, and they are being evaluated. We are also working with the Home Office on behalf of young people who sexually abuse, a point made by the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke). Many were victims of abuse in their childhoods. We have recently published two research reports: one provides evidence that interventions can be effective in preventing new or continued abuse; the other studies links between sexually abusive behaviour and emerging severe personality disorder traits in childhood. That makes it all the more important to provide early and effective interventions. To support that work, a national strategy is nearing completion, and with it we will publish guidelines on therapeutic and preventive interventions. That directly responds to a point that the hon. Lady—to her credit—has raised time and again in this House. The hon. Lady is the Member for Mid-Dorset and—