Can administrative records inform estimates of the extent and nature of harmful sexual behaviours?
Project team:
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:
- Phase 1: Map the data holdings in key South Australian government agencies relevant to harmful sexual behaviours in order to determine the data with the greatest potential to inform prevalence or incidence estimates and the parameters for any extraction requests
- Phase 2a: Generate descriptive statistics from any fixed format data identified as high relevance and extracted for analysis (as determined by Phase 1 outcomes)
- Phase 2b: Interview clinicians who specialise in therapeutic responses to children’s and young people’s harmful sexual behaviour to determine the child’s pathways into and through therapeutic services in South Australia. Thematic analysis will be undertaken relative to the types of HSB behaviours displayed by children and young people, referral into and through the services and exit procedures from service.
