Since its introduction in 2010, the Continuum of Sexual Behaviour in Childhood has become widely used in harmful sexual behaviour (HSB) policy and practice. However, its uptake has also exposed limitations in interpretation, including use as an assessment tool, treatment of strands as fixed or sequential, and misapplication to victim-survivor experiences. This paper presents a revised Hackett Continuum for children's sexual behaviours, with children defined as all persons under 18 years. The revision updates the language and constructs of the original model, links five descriptive strands to three overarching categories - developmentally expected sexual behaviour, problematic sexual behaviour and HSB - and applies to both in-person and digitally mediated behaviours. The revised Continuum is presented as a developmental and contextual heuristic to support proportionate professional judgement, clarify conceptual boundaries, address definitional drift and align the model with contemporary understandings of children's developmental, relational and ecological contexts.PRACTICE IMPACT STATEMENT This paper offers practitioners an updated Continuum to support initial decision-making about children's sexual behaviours. The revised model helps differentiate developmentally expected, problematic and harmful sexual behaviours, supporting proportionate, contextually informed responses and clearer communication with children, families and professionals.
Although literature on therapist self-disclosure (TSD) has been widely studied, little is known about how therapists' personal characteristics influence its use in forensic settings. The present study examined associations among TSD, attachment style, personality traits (extraversion and neuroticism), and patient population among therapists treating survivors of sexual abuse, sexual offenders, and non-forensic patients. 181 therapists completed self-report questionnaires assessing attachment style, personality, and patterns of TSD. Emotional stability was positively associated with TSD, while avoidant attachment was negatively associated. Extraversion was not related to TSD, and no differences emerged across patient populations, suggesting that therapists' personal characteristics may play a greater role than clinical setting in shaping disclosure decisions. Gender differences were also identified: male therapists reported greater use of insight-oriented and challenging-disclosures, whereas female decisions were influenced by gender-related and patient-specific considerations. When therapists endorse TSD but struggle to implement it, supervision may enhance self-awareness and its clinical use.PRACTICE IMPACT STATEMENT The findings highlight the role of therapists' personal characteristics, particularly attachment style and emotional stability, in shaping the use of therapist self-disclosure across clinical settings. By increasing awareness of these factors, supervision and professional training may support more intentional, flexible, and clinically attuned disclosure decisions. The study emphasises the importance of therapist self-awareness as a component of effective therapeutic practice, including work with forensic populations.
Sibling Sexual Behaviour and Abuse (SSB-A) is increasingly recognised as both a prevalent form of intrafamilial sexual abuse and a significant subtype of Harmful Sexual Behaviour (HSB) between children and young people. Evidence from research and practice demonstrates that SSB-A is situated within a complex context of individual, relational and familial dynamics, often underpinned by dysfunction. SSB-A remains under-theorised and inconsistently addressed in policy and practice frameworks. This paper draws together existing evidence to conceptualise SSB-A as a distinct form of HSB and uses an SSB-A-specific KPI tool and the Sibling Sexual Behaviour Mapping Tool (SSB-MT) to support its identification, prevention and response. While sexual behaviour between siblings is never developmentally appropriate, it can manifest across a spectrum of severity, ranging from problematic to harmful, requiring nuanced understanding and differentiated professional responses. Grounded in the socio-ecological model, this framework provides a structured means for professionals to locate SSB-A within wider systems of risk, need and support.
Dynamic risk factors (DRFs) occupy a central position in modern forensic practice, serving simultaneously as predictors of recidivism, explanations of offending and targets for intervention. Each of these functions makes fundamentally different evidential demands, and the field has not always maintained clear distinctions between them. This paper evaluates the construct validity of DRFs for sexual offending through three complementary theoretical frameworks: Cronbach and Meehl ' s nomological network framework, Messick ' s unified validity framework and Haig, B. D. ' s theory validation framework. Each framework reveals a distinct layer of the validity problem: the nomological architecture surrounding DRFs is theoretically underspecified; the validity argument is substantially stronger for prediction than for the clinical uses to which DRFs are also applied and DRFs largely operate as classificatory or dispositional theories rather than the mechanistic accounts their applied use presupposes. A research agenda is proposed to address these limitations.PRACTICE IMPACT STATEMENT Dynamic risk factors for sexual offending are routinely used to guide treatment targeting and clinical formulation, yet the construct validity evidence suggests that their causal status as intervention targets has not been adequately established. Practitioners and policy makers should exercise caution in treating DRF scores as direct indicators of the causes of offending, and should instead recognise them as theoretically incomplete but practically useful markers of recidivism risk.
This study analyses the lived experiences of intra-familial child sexual abuse survivors in Assam, India. A qualitative research design was adopted to explore the causes of intra-familial child sexual abuse, barriers to disclosure, impact and support systems available to children reporting such abuse. Sixteen respondents were recruited for the study through a 15-day workshop on child sexual abuse (CSA), which was conducted as a part of the Theatre of the Oppressed program at an academic institution. In-depth interviews were conducted and data was transcribed and thematically analysed. The findings highlight the causes of intra-familial child sexual abuse to be financial reliance on the abuser, cognitive limitation of survivors due to age, lack of attention from parents and manipulative tactics of the abusers. The study emphasises how intra-familial sexual abuse is deeply embedded in the socio-cultural realm of Indian society with limited support systems in place for victim-survivors.PRACTICE IMPACT STATEMENTSurvivors' narratives in this study highlight critical gaps in existing support and protection systems available to children when disclosing sexual abuse, leading to cycles of abuse in India. The findings of the study align with a large body of existing research conducted in the global south. However, the study captures first-hand experiences of survivors and how they negotiated with their experiences in a society bounded by deep-rooted familial obligations, adherence to gender norms, taboos surrounding sexual abuse issues, and limited institutional support.
