Improving Teacher Education to Adequately Deal with Child Sexual Abuse – an Exploratory Study

The prevalence of child sexual abuse (CSA) has remained consistently high for years. While children most often disclose experiences of CSA to trusted teachers than to other non-relative adults in their lives, many teachers report feeling unprepared to handle suspected CSA cases. Schools, too, note their uncertainty about whether to intervene and – when they do – which other professionals to involve at what stages of the process. Against this background, this paper aims to identify key CSA intervention training areas that can enable teachers to handle cases of suspected CSA professionally and competently. In contrast to existing research, which tends to focus exclusively on teachers, this Germany-based study draws on interviews with professionals from a wide range of institutions, including schools (n = 17), child protection services (n = 15), and law enforcement (n = 13). Significantly, all of the interviewees highlighted the need for improved teacher education on CSA intervention, with inter-institutional collaboration and knowledge of how to conduct an intervention being the most frequent topics of recollection among those interviewed.