Child sexual abuse prevention helpline calls increase in Wales

Stop It Now! Child sexual abuse prevention charity tell us the number of people reaching out for support across Wales has increase by 23% in the last year.

Half of people calling are worried about their own thoughts towards children, with a quarter reaching out for support with concerns about someone they know.Deborah Denis is the

Deborah Denis is the Chief Executive of the Lucy Faithful Foundation who run the Stop It Now! helpline, she says: " We've been doing a lot of work in Wales with partner agencies, with professionals, with families and with statutory services to make sure as many people as possible know about the help they can get. So I see it as a really positive thing that more people are reaching out for help."

"We will always start with child protection at the center of what we do and we'll address that first and foremost."

"The we'll explore a little bit about the motivation for these thoughts, where have they come from? What's driving them? How can we look to address that."

"It might be things like looking for distraction activities, in some cases we will support you to report yourself to the police. It really does vary in different cases."

She also said: " We also support adults who are worried about the sexual behaviour of a child or young person. Recognising that a third of child sexual abuse is commited by under 18's themselves. We don't turn anyone away and if someone under 18 calls the helpline we will support them and if they're worried about themselves of course we will work with them."

"People worried about themselves make up about half of our calls. The other big proportion of callers are adults worried about the behaviour of someone they know. It's mostly male, not always but mostly male. Often the callers are looking for help in knowing, should I be worried about this? and if I should, what should I do about it?"

To found out more about Stop It Now! and the Lucy Faithfull Foundation you can click here: https://www.stopitnow.org.uk/

Hear all the latest news from across the UK on the hour, every hour, on Greatest Hits Radio on DAB, smartspeaker, at greatesthitsradio.co.uk, and on the Rayo app.