Impact case study database

Impact 1: Changing professional practice and improving awareness of sexting

Using Bond’s research on sexting, the University of Suffolk has annually hosted Safer Internet Day (organised by the joint Insafe-INHOPE network, with the support of the European Commission). Bond is a trained NCA CEOP ambassador, and to date has delivered training to over 1,600 children’s workforce professionals, including police officers, on the nature and impact of online sexual offending against children and how to respond effectively to incidents of nude image sharing [5.1].

The follow-up survey from the training found 98% reported having a better understanding of how children and young people use the internet and social media; 93% reported increased knowledge of the nature and impact of online sexual offending against children and young people; and 94% reported that they were responding more effectively to incidents of nude image sharing as a result of the training. The National Police Chiefs Council Lead for Child Protection in England and Wales [5.2] said:

“Emma’s work has assisted in a change of culture in policing over the last six years which has rightly seen children being placed first by the professionals involved in Child Protection. This sets us on the correct path to raise awareness, plan and conduct child-centred investigations and drives further positive outcomes for all involved”.

Since 2015, Bond’s research has underpinned evidence to inform educational resources by the UK Safer Internet Centre, BBC Own It and Internet Matters (the leading not-for-profit organisation informing parental knowledge on online safeguarding). She was appointed to the advisory board for Internet Matters in 2017. To date, three million families have heard of Internet Matters, with 82% of parents reporting that they felt better prepared to handle online issues with their child in the future after visiting the website [5.1]. Working with Tyrrell, Bond conducted an evaluation of the Home Office funded Inclusive Online Safety hub in 2020, which had nearly 12,000 views within the first month of its launch. 80% professionals working with vulnerable children who visited the website stated finding the resources useful in practice [5.3].

Impact 2: Improving how helplines support professionals and victims

The number of children contacting the NSPCC’s Childline following online sexual abuse is increasing. The role of helplines in supporting victims of online sexual abuse should not be underestimated. As an established helpline for children already exists in the UK, the Professionals Online Safety Helpline is unique within the European network of centres in that it supports professionals rather than children. Bond’s research on sexting has been used by the helpline to provide professionals with advice on how best to respond to incidents of nude image sharing. Over the last four years, the helpline has supported over 3,300 professionals on how best to protect children from online harms [5.3]. The Helpline manager stated [5.4]:

“At the time, I was overseeing the Professionals Online Safety Helpline where we received many calls regarding teenagers involved in sexting, sometimes consensual between two young people, but being deemed as harmful by schools, and criminal by law enforcement. Following this [Bond’s] work, there was a greater understanding of the actual scale of the issue (rather that the moral panic led by the UK media) but also an understanding that for some it was seen as “normal”, and not harmful. The research certainly helped inform education messaging for young people, and for parents, who felt out of depth with this topic. In terms of impact for helplines, it was critical that we could help schools rewrite policy and risk assessments to ensure that children at risk or who were being exploited received the right support immediately, but that a proportionate response was made in consensual relationships. In particular, in deciding when police involvement was required”.

The impact of Bond’s work on improving the advice given by helplines extends beyond the UK. Insafe and INHOPE are a global network of 47 member hotlines and n ational awareness centres focusing on raising awareness and understanding of safer internet issues and emerging trends. And Bond’s research informed Insafe-INHOPE’s training for helplines across Europe, which took place in Vilnius, Lithuania in 2014. Bond provided training to 140 international practitioners actively engaged in advising and supporting children, their families, and other professionals [5.1; 5.4]. Approximately 8% of calls to Insafe helplines are related to sexting, and in the year following the training, the helplines from 31 European countries received just under 40,000 contacts [5.5].

“The training informed good practice across all services, whether supporting young people directly or their parents, caregivers or educators. It enabled some standardised language and approaches which are still in place today, as well as the creation of teen friendly, sexting resources” [5.4].

Impact 3: Helping analysts categorise online abuse imagery

“Professor Bond’s ground-breaking work on sexting acted as a catalyst in transforming how the sharing of intimate images was understood and responded to by the online community” [5.1]. It also drew policy attention to the sexting phenomenon. Her work has improved support for victims, provided evidence to support better service delivery and informed both educational responses to online risk and how best to safeguard children after online sexual abuse. Bond’s research on sexting changed the online safeguarding agenda and how the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF – the self-regulatory organisation providing an internet hotline for the public and IT professionals to report potentially criminal online content) understood self-generated sexual imagery [5.6]. The knowledge that analysts gained from this research is having a direct influence on how they approach the identification and removal of child sexual abuse imagery operationally [5.6]. In 2020, IWF analysts processed 299,600 reports, an increase of 15% on the previous year. Of these, 68,000 reports were tagged as including ‘self-generated’ child sexual abuse content – a 77% increase on 2019’s total of 38,400 reports. The former CTO and Deputy CEO of the Internet Watch Foundation explained the significance of the impact of the research [5.6]:

“[it] enabled the online safeguarding professional community to have challenging conversations, to address sexting as a behaviour which was occurring online amongst children, when a lot of online safeguarding experts were in denial of its prevalence. Professor Bond’s research around sexting was one of the first research studies of its kind, and in turn, changed the ways in which colleagues and I at the Internet Watch Foundation understood self-generated sexual imagery. While the primary remit of the IWF is to remove child sexual abuse imagery (including self-generated illegal sexual imagery) Professor Bond’s work enabled us as an organisation to begin to think carefully about motivations behind the imagery, and operationally we were able to become more nuanced in how we reported and categorised imagery”.

Impact 4: Training professionals to support children after online sexual abuse

The prevalence of child victims of online sexual abuse is increasing. In 2018, for example, Scotland Yard’s online child sexual abuse and exploitation team received 2,514 referrals, an increase of 139% from 2017. The impact of image-based abuse as a consequence of sexting is now well documented and acknowledged. Bond’s research has gone further to examine ‘what works’ in supporting children to recover after online child sexual abuse. The most consistent and sustained example of the research’s impact is the partnership between the researchers at UoS and the Marie Collins Foundation (MCF) – the UK’s leading charity working nationally and globally to support children after online sexual abuse [5.7]. Based on her research around sexting [3.1; 3.2; 3.3], the MCF commissioned Bond to conduct a national survey with frontline children’s services. Published January 2014, the survey evidence enabled the MCF to obtain funding from BT for a pilot of a new training programme, Click: Path to Protection [5.7]. The national pilot training programme was co-developed by MCF staff and Bond, informed by her research. The programme ran between 2014 and 2016 in five locations across the UK with 114 professionals and was evaluated by Bond and Dogaru [3.5].

The need for this training was further evidenced by the serious case review in Bradford in 2015 which stated: “ There needs to be a national response to provide the tools and information to prevent harm to children and deter and apprehend offenders”. The lack of knowledge, data and critical understanding of harm online has been highlighted by a number of high-profile reports over the last six years. Each one has recommended that more attention should be paid to addressing the needs of the child victims, while developing models of intervention that take account of the differential impacts of abuse via new technologies. The comprehensive training programme Click: Path to Protection, developed by MCF and informed by Bond’s research, responds to this need.

The study undertaken by Bond and Dogaru evaluating the effectiveness of the pilot programme [3.3] resulted in significant further funding from BT (in excess of £650K) for a national training programme in the UK. Based on the evaluation and the importance of multi-agency training highlighted by the findings, the programme was launched in 2016. The evaluative work has continued alongside the training to provide both qualitative and quantitative data on the training’s effectiveness since its launch, using an online survey, interview and observation data:

“Having attended the ACT: Path to Protection all-day training event, I will never again approach and interview child victims in the way I have done over the four years I have specialised in investigating cases of online abuse of children. My practice will change forever” Police officer [5.7].

The ongoing evaluation by UoS has directly informed the development of the programme to include a new ‘train the trainers’ strand, delivered to 36 leading professionals who by 2020 had trained a further 403 professionals across the UK, and a new training module for managers was also introduced [5.7]. The CEO of the MCF [5.7] summarised Bond’s central role to the work:

“Prof Bond’s research at the University of Suffolk was instrumental to us securing funding and she has played a vital role in the success of the programme, such as providing underpinning research evidence, peer support, continual programme evaluation, and importantly, challenging perceptions about online abuse with policy makers and parliamentary committees.”

Following the success of the national training based on Bond’s research, the MCF obtained funding in 2019 which enabled the programme to be delivered internationally in priority countries, including to child protection teams in Canada (20 social workers and therapists trained) Ukraine (150 professionals trained) the Philippines (150 professionals trained) and Vietnam (400 professionals trained). In 2020 following the COVID crisis, the Click: Path to Protection training was moved online supported by Bond and her team [5.7]. The MCF CEO explained the influence of the work on child protection:

“More specifically, after the training, 91% reported the training had significantly improved their knowledge of online risk; 91% similarly reported higher confidence levels in assessing online risk, and 86% [said] they were better able to support children and their families after online sexual abuse. Given that the training has been delivered to over 7,000 professionals to date and the average number of children that professionals reported supporting is 27, we predict that as direct result of the training, approximately 189,000 children are potentially better safeguarded and supported towards recovery after online sexual abuse.”

Impact 5: UK legislation – still criminalising children

More recently, reflecting concerns on the criminalisation of children who share intimate images, and following her research [3.6], Bond highlighted how current legislation in the UK potentially protects adults who are victims of intimate image abuse while potentially criminalises children. The Deputy Chief Constable (Ministry of Defence Police) explained the significance of this on policing policy [5.8]:

“The policing dilemma was that the person at the centre of this issue was technically committing a criminal offence of distributing explicit images of children, whereas they were also being victimised and exploited, which has led to people taking their own lives. Supported by Prof Bond’s research, the policy change was to ensure such incidents were dealt with sensitively and recognising that at the core was a young person who is growing up that should not be criminalised. Her work [in] the area of sexting and indeed more broadly has had, and continues to have, a significant impact on policing policy through challenging an institution that had been used to a traditional approach towards a significantly changing pattern of crime and vulnerability”.

The National Police Chiefs Council Lead for Child Protection in England and Wales summarised the impact of Bond’s research and training on protecting children [5.2]:

“There is no doubt that the research and training conducted and developed by Professor Emma Bond and her team has had a significant impact on Child Protection work, not only in the police but across multiple agencies leading to thousands of children and their families being safeguarded nationally. Crucially, it has kept more vulnerable people safe, it has supported professionals across many disciplines to make the right decisions, do the right thing and provide improved services to our communities”.