21st Century Child Abuse: A conversation with Ethel Quayle, world-renowned researcher at the University of Edinburgh

Dr. Ethel Quayle is a clinical psychologist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland in the United Kingdom.  She is also a world-renowned researcher, who has focused on sexual crimes against children, especially sexual offenses involving the Internet.  A particular priority for her work has been the role of abuse images in the offending process.    

In the Radio Kempe Podcast, Dr. Quayle discusses the vital importance of research on this problem, her work with both sex offenders and their victims, and her development of a therapeutic program for internet sex offenders, including adolescents displaying problematic sexual behavior.  

Join Radio Kempe for an interview with pioneering researcher, Dr. Ethel Quayle, as we open our eyes to the new risks and harms to children in this digital age, and work toward real practical solutions.

Transcript

00:00:00:0 - 00:00:19:6
Unknown
You're listening to Radio Kempe. We value the sense of community that connects people and helps them find ways to move forward. Join us on our journey to prevent child abuse and neglect.

00:00:19:6 - 00:00:51:8
Unknown
Welcome to Radio Kempe and our latest podcast in the series, 21st Century Child Abuse. I'm Ernie Allen and I'll be your host today. I spent many years in the fight to keep children safe as an advisor to governments, law enforcement, technology companies, and others, including the Camp center. Today, our guest is Doctor Ethel Quayle. Ethel is a clinical psychologist and personal chair of forensic clinical psychology at the University of Edinburgh.

00:00:51:9 - 00:01:30:7
Unknown
She's also a world renowned researcher who's done extraordinary work on sexual crimes against children, particularly sexual offenses involving the internet. A particular focus has been on the role of abuse images in the offending process. She's collaborated with governments and non-governmental organizations worldwide. Ethel, the Kemp Center was honored to have you address its 2023 international conference. We are concerned about the growing risks and harms to children and youth online, a challenge we're referring to as 21st century child abuse.

00:01:30:7 - 00:01:55:5
Unknown
You're a global expert. How serious is this challenge? Or can I just start by saying, thank you very much for inviting me, and I hope that I have something that will be of interest in terms of what we're going to talk about. this has been an area that has engaged me for, what, the last 26 years? I think it is.

00:01:55:5 - 00:02:22:4
Unknown
So it's been a long time. what I've seen over the years, I think, can only lead to one conclusion that this really is a serious. And it's a growing challenge. I think right at the beginning, we thought that the problem would simply go away. I think people were still kind of suggesting that maybe we should just unplug the internet, whatever that might have meant.

00:02:22:5 - 00:02:47:8
Unknown
and the problem would disappear. But I think the evidence that we have, points to the fact that the problem is not going away, and in fact, it's increasing and becoming more complex in some ways. when we talk about that and I think what we, we try and do is to use evidence to support what it is that we're seeing with the claims that we are making.

00:02:47:8 - 00:03:14:8
Unknown
But sometimes the evidence really is very tentative and it's not there. and when we start to talk about how how serious the problem is, I think we can look back and look at that across kind of different kinds of data, so we can think about data that we have largely from, surveys with young people. then we have data that relates to offenders.

00:03:14:8 - 00:04:14:5
Unknown
So we have people who have been convicted of offenses. but we also have data that relates to the permanent products of this abuse that takes place certainly in the online environment. and that, that that relates to the images themselves that are created, as well as text and interactions between people and our most recent victim related data, which I think is worth, making reference to, would come from Professor Cooper's research group, which was data that was collected in relation to young adults, so 18 to, to 28 talking about online abuse of experiences that took place when they were minors and the overall prevalence rate, there was nearly 15.6, nearly 16%

00:04:14:6 - 00:04:51:8
Unknown
of this very large cohort, which seems quite substantial. But what I think is of interest is that when you start to look at this in the context of child sexual abuse within this particular study, simply adding questions about online abuse increases the prevalence rates, but not quite, but almost, double. So it went from 13.5% to 21.7% when we added in questions about online abuse.

00:04:51:9 - 00:05:30:5
Unknown
So we we we cannot then but draw the conclusion that this is a significant problem. and the, the forms of abuse that have the greatest impact at the greatest contribution to this overall prevalence rate, but also the greatest impact were ones that involve sexual images. largely non-consensual sharing of sexual images or images that were shared in the context of an online grooming solicitation relationship.

00:05:30:6 - 00:06:04:5
Unknown
So when we start to think about how big is the problem, we can see that it varies in terms of our victim related data across different forms of abuse. But the overall prevalence rates are high. and we've seen similar prevalence rates that relate to, non-consensual sharing of images. particularly the of concern here is the fact that, this is not the stereotype of, adult males.

00:06:04:6 - 00:06:34:2
Unknown
the children, but this is peer related. Sharing is quite high. So a large proportion of these abusive practices are taking place between peers. And you see this from the W.H.O. studies as well. so if we look at, victim data, we can see a steady increase in the number of scenarios where children are experiencing online sexual abuse and exploitation.

00:06:34:2 - 00:07:11:2
Unknown
And particularly impactful is where images are shared. We also know from, offender related data that the number of people convicted for these crimes is rising, and we don't know why that is. it may be that we are getting better at detecting them, but even in general population studies and so there was a recent, study that was done across, Australia, the UK and the US as part of this global index that's being, created by, through child.

00:07:11:2 - 00:07:50:8
Unknown
Right. is that you've got between 7.5% in Australia, 7% in the UK, 10.9% in the US of people within the general population. have engaged in online child sexual abuse. so you've got really the kind of high levels of abusive behavior and high levels of victimization. And again, when we look at the third category, we think about images, the number of images that have been created as part of this abuse, are very high.

00:07:50:9 - 00:08:21:2
Unknown
And of course, well, we can take them down. We can't stop them being uploaded to the internet. so we've we've got a lot of evidence to suggest, that this is a considerable challenge to us. And I would say to that there are multiple problems in understanding the scale of the challenge, that relates to the the kind is the source and the quality of the data that we have.

00:08:21:3 - 00:08:48:5
Unknown
the majority of the studies tend to be cross-sectional. So we take a single time point when we ask the questions. We have very few longitudinal studies, so we really don't know what happens over time. Although our thinking is important that we are seeing some longitudinal data coming from Spain, that suggests not only do we have children who are victimized when we look at different time points.

00:08:48:5 - 00:09:20:6
Unknown
So one study looked at across two time points. You see that you have children who are abused at both time points. If we have a year in between. But you also have children where there is multiple victimization. And so in the, the, the data that was coming from Spain, approximately, I think it's 11% of these children were stable victims who had experienced multiple victimization across this time period.

00:09:20:7 - 00:09:53:2
Unknown
And this related to being a little bit older, being sexual minority. having, having English not as a first language, having parents who maybe, where there was no stable family. but what was also associated to this were elevated levels of shame. and, kind of self-criticism, really, on the part of victims.

00:09:53:2 - 00:10:27:7
Unknown
And I think what we can only conclude from this is that this notion of, particularly of shame and distress, becomes part the cycle of abusive practices where, people who, are exploiting children use this information to further exploit them into a trap. Them. So is this a significant problem? I think it is. I think you've made a compelling case, and I want to pursue that a little bit.

00:10:27:7 - 00:11:03:0
Unknown
you mentioned both, affect the work you've done with sex offenders and with victims, and that was particularly taken with the data you mentioned about abuse images and that 10% of the population, you know, may have engaged in sharing or trading or moving those, you know, with 8 billion people on the planet today. if half of those are male and most of the shares are male, you know, we're still talking about millions of people engaging in this, in this behavior.

00:11:03:0 - 00:11:28:6
Unknown
to talk a little bit about the work you specifically done on offenders and maybe elaborate a little more on the victim research that you've done. Right. Okay. But just a word of caution. Yes, yes, I agree with you. When we start to extrapolate from this to the larger population, the numbers are quite considerable. There are differences across studies and samples.

00:11:28:6 - 00:11:57:1
Unknown
In terms of the results. I, there are lots of countries where we do not have good evidence, in terms of, for example, offending. So I think we need just one word of caution in terms of generalizing across the population. But I think, yes, it's still talks to a very large number of people who are engaging in or who are thinking about engaging in if the risk was reduced.

00:11:57:1 - 00:12:36:3
Unknown
certainly in sharing, for example, of sexual image or sexual content. I think the whole issue about, working with offenders and victims is really a very interesting one. I think from the beginning when we started to identify, online spaces as being a factor in the basic practice, we tended to focus very much on how do we catch the surveillance, how do we actually identify people, prosecute them, convict them, and in some ways, contain the problem.

00:12:36:4 - 00:13:00:3
Unknown
and we did that also with victims. We were concerned right from the beginning in terms of see some who might be in these images, and how can we identify them and how can we then protect them in some sort of way? I think we use the words rescue, which I'm not sure was really very, very appropriate.

00:13:00:3 - 00:13:57:0
Unknown
I think more recently we things have taken a turn towards thinking not only about what we can do after the event has occurred, but starting to think more coherently about prevention. And I think there's been a lot of interesting work done in the area of prevention in terms of trying to provide some sort of conceptual framework as to how we think about the different kinds of prevention, and at what stage in the actual process may we sometimes not prevent but disrupt offending and also the possibility of victimization and sort of the models that we've drawn upon, and very much come from within kind of public health frameworks almost here.

00:13:57:1 - 00:14:38:6
Unknown
so we start to, to see the development of more coherent legislation, which allows us to reach some sort of consensus about, what our response to what I would still see is crimes, actually. and so we think about then, you know, kind of prevention across may be primary, secondary, tertiary, sometimes people at an additional level to say that we have to be constantly vigilant about people who are being, for example, through offender programs to see whether or not they stay offense free and what we can do to support that.

00:14:38:7 - 00:15:34:8
Unknown
So when we start to think about, for example, legislation, that's very much as a primary prevention, because if we have no laws in place, then how on earth can we actually detect or act upon, offenses because they're not considered illegal activities? and clearly, you would know early too well that probably one of the the big pushes here, came from it maps child sexual abuse material model legislation, which has been enormously, important in this area in starting to think about the problem, not simply nationally, but globally, because it was quite quickly identified that problems can occur in one place, and enacted by somebody against somebody who is victimized

00:15:34:8 - 00:16:12:9
Unknown
and living in another country. So that in particular in relation to see some as being really very, very, very significant. What I think we've seen more recently, certainly across the EU and, but, I would draw also on a particular example from the UK is that we've started to see, I think, more coherent approach, to legislation, legislation that impacts potentially on service providers.

00:16:12:9 - 00:16:47:8
Unknown
in terms of their obligations to prevent and combat child sexual abuse. so in Europe, we're talking about obliging providers to detect reports, remove, images, material csam child sexual abuse materials, on their service, to mitigate against the risk of misuse of their services. subject to, kind of their services to robust safeguarding, procedures.

00:16:47:9 - 00:17:16:7
Unknown
and what's being talked about now, this has been talked about for many, many years, but the EU is moving towards, a European center on child sexual abuse. which will facilitate the efforts of service providers, act as a hub of expertise. I think this coordinated activity has been really important in the UK. We've gone one step further.

00:17:16:8 - 00:18:03:4
Unknown
we now have the Online Safety Act, which came into, kind of the, the legal framework in 2023. And now we are requiring social media platforms by law to remove illegal content or prevent it from actually being there in the first place. and that includes not only, materials that relate to sexual violence, but, for example, relate to self-harm, prevent children from accessing harmful and inappropriate content and with thinking about that primarily, but not exclusive in relation to, forms of pornography.

00:18:03:5 - 00:18:35:0
Unknown
and that bumps into enforcing age limits and age checking measures. And this whole issue of, robust age verification comes into that. So not relying upon self-declaration of age, which we know to be a nonsense. Yeah. I mean, I think I make you make a really important point, but from the, the, experience in the EU and the debate in the EU, we know it's hard.

00:18:35:1 - 00:19:10:6
Unknown
Yeah. Because of the concern about violating the privacy rights of individual users. What are your thoughts about how we attain that, how we achieve that balance? Absolutely. And and I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, my own feeling of maybe this is inevitable from working in the area. I would guess is shared by many people who work in the area and see what the consequences of this abuse, is that ultimately we need to try authorities, the rights of young people to be protected adequately.

00:19:10:6 - 00:19:53:3
Unknown
We balance that also with that. Right. so a kind of self-determination, a self exploration of their own sexuality. I think that's a very difficult balancing act. And then we have to think, what what is an all consuming right. The bumps into lots of problems for us. in terms of, the rights of people to be able to, access content to, engage in activities, that is their right by default, because it's kind of otherwise we violate the rights of access as well as privacy.

00:19:53:4 - 00:20:22:6
Unknown
I think there has been lots of arguments about how we can engage with this. I mean, one of the issues that the, online safety Act, Bill has really, maybe partly addressed but not adequately addressed is the issue to do with end to end encryption and end to end encryption is a good example of how we have rights to privacy and security in terms of how we share information.

00:20:22:7 - 00:21:13:3
Unknown
End to end encryption is increasingly taking place across all of, message based platforms. and coming into areas that I know we probably are going to touch upon late, but kind of later. But some of the proposed solutions to that in terms of screening content prior to it being uploaded, I think of, possible and maybe viable solutions that do not overall compromise the rights of people in in being able to use encryption of their own personal information, but it does violate the rights of people to upload, for example, sexual images of children that are illegal in and of themselves.

00:21:13:4 - 00:21:47:6
Unknown
I think I'm not suggesting that this is not going to be difficult in the UK, and we will see how it unfolds. I think there will be lots of eyes watching the UK. but I don't see, given the technologies that we have, I do not see this as being an insurmountable problem. and I, I am reluctant to concede that there can be no solutions to this, and that's no, I think, effective.

00:21:47:7 - 00:22:15:3
Unknown
I think there's a really important point, and it's something that we heard in the European debate is how do we make encryption compatible with, protecting children from abuse? Because absolute privacy, yes. violates the privacy rights of the child whose images of being sexually abused are then on the internet forever. So it's that it's that compromise that we need to achieve.

00:22:15:4 - 00:22:43:3
Unknown
And my congratulations to you in the UK. I mean, the UK is the global leader in addressing this through the online harms legislation, and hopefully the rest of the world can catch up. And I, I think I think we will be watching what happens. And as you know, we have one government organizations, Ofcom who are going to be tasked with the responsibility to work.

00:22:43:4 - 00:23:16:4
Unknown
And I think there is a hope that the work will be collaborative, that it will be about creating solutions rather than, issuing fines or making life difficult for organizations. I don't think anybody wants to do that, but it is about working collaboratively to come up with solutions. And I think it would be reasonable to say that tech companies are absolutely wonderful at creating all these magical kind of forms that we all use.

00:23:16:5 - 00:23:47:8
Unknown
I cannot I am not prepared to believe that they cannot equally use all of their ingenuity, to address the problems that faces in relation to this. I if that is the case, then I will go away disappointed. Well, the challenge challenges. They're incredibly creative. They're also incredibly sensitive about anything that looks like regulation. Yes. So that that's that's the balance we need to strike.

00:23:48:0 - 00:24:17:9
Unknown
I'd like to segue for just a minute, because I know a particular focus of your work has been on the development of a therapeutic program for internet sex offenders, including an analysis of adolescents displaying problematic sexual behavior. Can you talk about that? What have you learned? What sorts of interventions work? Well, you know, I think this is in at a quite, in some ways quite a complex area.

00:24:18:0 - 00:25:08:7
Unknown
And it all hinges, around risk as well as the inferences that we might make from adult populations in terms of how we might apply those to children to minors. So if if we think about, first of all, identifying when, when this was identified, for example, in the UK, that oh my goodness sees online sex offenders largely at that point, people found in possession of sexual images of children where a problem we we were confronted by the problem because of a kind of an investigation that was taking place in the US where, surprise, surprise, people in the UK were using their credit cards to actually purchase sexual images.

00:25:08:8 - 00:25:42:6
Unknown
And the fallout from that, was that some work that we did with our National Offender Management Service? Because we do have a central, government led survey surface, for working with people who've committed offenses. And they subsequently went on to develop high S.A.T. PE, which was an intervention that was dedicated to sex offenders who had, use the internet technology to commit their crimes.

00:25:42:7 - 00:26:30:0
Unknown
But the findings from, this went through, a kind of an assessment process. and the findings suggested that there were considerable improvements in deficits related to socio affective functioning because we we had evidence to suggest that some of this related to difficulties in inter relational functioning, but also improve offending attitudes. The program ran for several years before it was decided because based on the evidence that we were now finding, which was in spite of the beliefs by many, I draw upon law enforcement here not to blame or enforcement.

00:26:30:0 - 00:27:08:2
Unknown
I think right at the beginning there was an assumption that people who accessed child sexual abuse imagery were inevitably going to commit a contact offense that was part of a kind of a process, and that this was inevitable. What we found was that, well, no, it wasn't inevitable. When we started to look at risk a little bit more systematically, it was found that many people who committed, offenses involving Csam would not go on to commit contact offenses.

00:27:08:3 - 00:27:36:9
Unknown
Now, there is always a question mark over this because we're talking about detection. Yeah. If we created we've got a population who just very good at voiding being caught. Well, maybe we don't know that, but we found from our re conviction data that only a small percentage would commit contact offenses relatively. It's always relative. These percentages look low.

00:27:37:0 - 00:28:04:6
Unknown
which is not to dismiss the fact that, you know, a large number of children would go on to be offended again. But what we saw was that they are more likely to go on if they were to re-offend to commit the same offense again, they would access images again. In some ways in the UK, that provided a rationale for saying, well, are low risk offenders and do not require the expense of expensive.

00:28:04:6 - 00:28:44:6
Unknown
Where you centrally deliver something, the expense of a need and an individual program, and therefore maybe it's a high risk, then they should go into our sex offender treatment programs, which largely was designed around people who may commit, for example, contact offenses against children. or they may go into what we have a very good, example of in kind of a successful foundation is more I think you'd call them educational Psychoeducation programs for offenders to reduce the likelihood of reoffending.

00:28:44:7 - 00:29:14:7
Unknown
So and then horror of horrors, what we found in our prison population, where people had been using, sex offender treatment programs, is that the people who had offenses that related to, online sex offending, in fact, on the program, seem to do worse than the people who had no intention to. Oh, no, the numbers here were quite small.

00:29:14:9 - 00:29:48:1
Unknown
So the data is problematic in itself. But it did suggest that there is something important here about the dosage of in the intervention. And I think it could be very strange if you didn't say throwing people who've been looking at images in with a group of people who've been committing contact offenses against children is maybe not a not a happy mixture of people in terms of, what they in relationships may be within that group and what may happen there.

00:29:48:2 - 00:30:22:6
Unknown
So what we've seen more recently, although there have been some really good interventions. For example, in Germany, again, the government funded program, working through the Dunkel cell project, much more of a medical model here than a purely psychological model. but really good work. That seems to suggest that, again, we can reduce the risk of re-offending, although there is still a risk of going back to committing the same sort of offenses.

00:30:22:7 - 00:30:56:2
Unknown
And then we've had a whole slew of programs. We were part of the development of one of them, which which very much was an online, an anonymous online program. we were fortunate enough to have good funding from the EU. It was a collaborative piece of work. It was subsequently adopted by the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, and they use it as their online anonymous program for people who wish to try and change or modify their own behavior.

00:30:56:3 - 00:31:22:4
Unknown
The data there looks very promising, but the problems that you have with this program, as with other programs which focus very much on anonymity because where you have mandatory reporting in countries, if you have the data that in fact, for example, it addresses from offenders that it becomes problematic in terms of whether or not they then reported to the police.

00:31:22:5 - 00:31:58:3
Unknown
What we can't do with this anonymous data, then, is no whether or not people actually go on to offend. We don't have that information. But more recently, and we've seen this in several programs within Europe, and one that I'm talking about now, came from Switzerland. we've seen the development of online programs, which in part unmoderated. So there is face to, not face to face, but there is person to person have also offered as well as the actual online content.

00:31:58:3 - 00:32:30:5
Unknown
So we've got one, program that's been through a rigorous evaluation here that shows positive change. And this relates to, people who are using the dark web darknet, to a friend. So changes in patterns of that. There is a slight difficulty here, self-reported offending. So we do have promising data that comes from these programs. They are much lower dosage.

00:32:30:6 - 00:32:55:4
Unknown
They are people looking for help. So that's not quite the same as where we have programs for people who have been convicted and who have not been help seeking. So where we can offer programs to, for people who are prepared to seek help, it looks as though the data is promising. And I think this is something that is worth further investment in.

00:32:55:5 - 00:33:18:0
Unknown
Well, and I think it seems to me it's particularly exciting because when you think about the concept of prevention, you know, to much of the world that means target hardening, you know, training children to be more careful, parental oversight and awareness. This is primary prevention. This is working to keep the offense from happening in the first place place.

00:33:18:0 - 00:34:08:1
Unknown
Absolutely. And I couldn't agree with you more. And I think a lot of the things that we've been doing, I mean, I think over the years when we talked about, harmful sexual behavior, I think we're making really interesting and good progress in this area. I think one of the challenges for me, and this is just a personal thing, is that I feel somewhat uneasy about a lot of the children displaying harmful online sexual behavior are engaging in, for example, non-consensual sharing of images and, positioning that as, which is the case, I must admit, in the UK and probably much of but positioning that as a sexual offense in the context of a lot

00:34:08:1 - 00:35:02:7
Unknown
of this behavior being, for want of a better word, normalized the the taking and sharing of sexual images, I think, clearly has been associated. Certainly it's been associated in the US with, self-produced child pornography. leaves me feeling uncomfortable in, in the, in the way that we have developed technologies that support and enable, images to be taken about lots and lots of things, but images certainly to be taken about, sexual behavior that if it's taken between adults, we do not see this being problematic where it's taken between children, we somehow label that in some countries as getting child pornography and child pornography, to me has something to do with the content of

00:35:02:7 - 00:35:28:4
Unknown
the viewer rocks and how it's created. So I think we're doing some really interesting work. In short, hold accountable sexual behavior. but there are some tensions there that I, I personally feel a little bit uncomfortable with. and that's just me personally. I wouldn't I wouldn't assume that that would be the case for anybody else, so. Well, let me answer one, one final question.

00:35:28:4 - 00:35:53:9
Unknown
We're nearing the end of our time limit. But you are a, a trailblazing researcher. You've done extraordinary work, in this field. You talked about the impact of research and what we are learning about these problems. What are the priorities for future research? The campus center is both an advocacy and a research, institution. what should we be focusing on?

00:35:53:9 - 00:36:40:2
Unknown
Where are the voids that we need to fill if we're going to be more effective in combating this problem? Right. I think there is a there is a considerable amount of, advocacy work taking place, and there is a lot of research, related to both children as victims and people who may or are offending. I think there was a lot of work that, I think some good examples of that, for example, comes from some of the work that's been done by linguists in looking at how language is used to persuade children, but also and then in developing good AI models, for the detection, of online grooming, online solicitation activities.

00:36:40:2 - 00:37:34:5
Unknown
So I think, you know, that is good research that is put into good collaborative practice, particularly with law enforcement. Law enforcement has really, I think, stepped up in terms of their willingness to collaborate. And we need more of that. I think one area where we have made less progress is that while we understand more about the risks, that result in victimization of children, in particular, results that have been identified, such as higher sexual abuse, that children who, that kind of maybe, less, less support for children within their own personal environments.

00:37:34:5 - 00:38:07:5
Unknown
So there is kind of less guardianship taking place. or children who may be, questioned or, have, kind of a gender minority. They, they are vulnerability is but but so we know some things that are associated with the likelihood of being victimized, but we don't fully understand is we don't have any real conceptual, strong conceptual frameworks for understanding why these vulnerabilities may result in victimization.

00:38:07:5 - 00:39:05:6
Unknown
What is the process that takes place that leaves children more vulnerable? And I think that becomes particularly salient when we understand that a large percentage of children who are victimized stay victimized. They are revictimized. So I think at the minute we lack a coherent conceptual framework for understanding victimization. And linked with that, there is, a kind of absolute dearth of work being done in looking at how we respond to the needs of children who are victimized, both in reducing, the distress and the psychological damage that is caused by victimization online, but also in looking at how we can mitigate against future victimization, how can we, strengthen children short of saying, which

00:39:05:6 - 00:39:32:4
Unknown
is what we have done historically, we place the burden back on children. It's your responsibility, not to not to become a victim. I do not think that goes very far. more recent educational programs have moved away from that model. But still, the focus tends to be on changing attitudes rather than necessarily changing behaviors. We need better data.

00:39:32:4 - 00:40:17:7
Unknown
We talked earlier about the possibility of using AI to assist, online child sexual abuse detection and prevention, but it's compromised because our data is biased. It's only just recently that we've moved away from the tilted dependance, on data coming from high income countries. yeah. To detect, you know, control. We think about the disrupting harm study as we see that these problems that we are seeing in high income countries are also now being seen in other countries across the world where there are even fewer resources to try and buffer, what is actually happening to children?

00:40:17:8 - 00:41:16:1
Unknown
but I date our AI tools can only draw upon what is already known, and if what's already known is biased towards largely white high income communities, then our bid to use AI in a way for good becomes compromised. And I think that that's an area that we certainly need to be thinking more about. and I think we need to I think the biggest thing in relation to advocacy is that 12 years ago, we were talking about the fact that people working with children do not ask them about their online relationships, nor do they ask them certainly, routinely about whether or not they've experienced anything that might be problematic.

00:41:16:2 - 00:41:51:7
Unknown
Scroll on to 2024. All of the data that we have suggests that practitioners, particularly child facing organizations, do not routinely ask young people about their online relationships and certainly do not push in terms of whether or not children have experienced situations that they may have found may be troubling or distressed. So, I mean, I it is almost as though we are still in the position that we were when we started to talk about trauma.

00:41:51:8 - 00:42:18:8
Unknown
Nobody wanted to ask about trauma because we didn't know what to do if somebody had experienced trauma, we're back in the same position. There is no referral route through services. There are no tools to help people. Actually, when children talk about, being distressed about something happening online and there are no evidence based treatment programs, so do we need more work in this area?

00:42:18:8 - 00:42:57:8
Unknown
Yes, we do. and I think I've got one area which I promise I will stop one. But we we have a lot of, studies at the minute, that are really polarized in terms of screen time and amount of time spent online and whether it's harming children and causing mental health problems or whether it's actually promoting children's wellbeing and their ability to retain, obtain information and grow that polarized debate somehow doesn't seem very helpful.

00:42:57:9 - 00:43:28:3
Unknown
I think we need to start thinking about how we're not cyborgs yet, although I think, moving in that direction, we need to think a little bit more about how, for example, handheld devices have become extensions of who we are and how we engage in the world, and we need to stop thinking more about what impact is that likely to have on us as human beings.

00:43:28:4 - 00:44:11:1
Unknown
And and when we think about some of the work from Ofcom in the UK saying, you know, large percentages of under fours now have ready access to handheld devices, I think it's not about doing these polarized arguments of harm or not. I think it's something more about how we are being changed, maybe for or better, but certainly being changed and how we manage that in relation not only to the good actors in this world, because there are many, but the bad actors whose intentions are not congruent with caring for children.

00:44:11:2 - 00:44:39:5
Unknown
And if all the challenges are enormous, and I think you've laid out for us in a compelling way the range and scope of those challenges and as you know, the audience for this podcast is physicians, such, social workers, child welfare workers, advocates, so your point about trauma screening, about asking the question we know in terms of basic data, that most kids don't tell, about their abuse.

00:44:39:5 - 00:45:03:6
Unknown
So I was encouraged to hear earlier the fact that you're now interviewing young adults regarding their experience as children. So the challenges are huge. I want to thank you for being with us today. Thank you for your vision and your extraordinary impact on this problem. The scope and range of what you've done, over your career is immeasurable.

00:45:03:7 - 00:45:25:0
Unknown
your work has made the world far more aware of the nature and true extent of this complex problem. And you've made a major contribution in our fight against 21st century child abuse. And, of course, thank you to our listeners. I hope you will join us for our next podcast on Radio Kempe. Thank

00:45:25:0 - 00:45:41:6
Unknown
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