Australia lacks contemporary data on the extent of the problem of children displaying harmful sexual behaviours. Studies that do exist are now dated and were generated from one-off point in time studies with no mechanisms for routine monitoring of prevalence or incidence.
South Australian government agencies and oversight bodies all have distinct roles in responding to children with harmful sexual behaviours and are key record holders for information about HSB. However, there can be a disconnect between records made relating to individual children or incidents and records which can be feasibly extracted at a population level to inform the generation of estimates. This study aims to understand what records are held, for what populations and contexts and in what format (fixed or narrative) and the feasibility and process for extraction to determine what data holdings have the greatest potential to inform prevalence or incidence estimates and the most appropriate methodologies for handling these data.
This project will be undertaken in a series of consecutive phases and aims to: