An interview with Secrecy

In this candid interview, Secrecy shares the role they play in preventing children from accessing the services they need after experiencing sexual abuse. They discuss the history of their role in suppressing community awareness of child sexual abuse, and the ways in which they deprive children and adults of the information they need to prevent and respond to abuse.   Secrecy shares with us their concerns regarding the developing practice skills of many professionals who help children to disclose their abuse, and to recover from the effects. However, Secrecy still has many tricks up their sleeve to prevent practice confidence and competence in encouraging and responding to disclosures of abuse, such as convincing practitioners ‘not to open a can of worms.’  Secrecy also explores the long-term implications for children’s mental health if they do not access the support that they need, and explains how they work together with Self-blame and Shame to ensure poorer relationship, educational, financial and health outcomes for victims of abuse.  In this episode you will learn: 

•  how Secrecy tricks children into believing they should keep child sexual abuse to themselves, and how perpetrators help Secrecy to prevent disclosures [1:34]
• the tricks that Secrecy uses to take away children’s voices [3:15]
• the difference that it can make for children when adults shine a light on Secrecy, and help children have important conversations about safety [5:50]
• how Shame and Self-blame convince children that they don’t deserve support for their experience of abuse, and that the abuse was their fault [12:15]

Further information and resources:  Emerging Minds Learning  Making use of practitioners’ skills to support a child who has been sexually abused - Emerging Minds  Responding to the challenge of child sexual abuse - Emerging Minds