About

The National Strategy is the result of efforts by the Scottish Parliament's Cross Party Group for Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, and many other individuals and organisations.

The new SurvivorScotland website is an information and education resource. Neither SurvivorScotland nor the staff associated with it can provide treatment, counselling or advice for those affected by childhood abuse. If you do need help, please click here for a list of organisations who may be able to help you.

We are aware that at the moment that this site cannot cover many aspects related to childhood sexual abuse which you would like to see represented. However, we would like to make clear that the content of the site is still being developed, and we aim to continue to add useful material over time. Your comments and contributions will be an important part of this process.

Background

The Scottish Parliament's Cross Party Group for Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse (CPG) was set up in 2001, with the clear aim to demonstrate the need for a National Strategy in Scotland to ensure that co-ordinated action was taken, locally and nationally, to improve the lives of survivors and help prevent future abuse.

The National Strategy is the result of efforts of this group of people and many others and was launched in September 2005. Two Lead Professionals and a National Reference Group were then appointed to take forward the implementation of the Strategy. Membership of the Reference Group includes people from a wide range of voluntary and statutory services, survivors and survivor groups, including In Care abuse, and Scottish Government representatives.

Progress

The first year’s achievements were presented at a major national conference, the first of its kind in Scotland, in February 2007. You can download the Conference Report. Since then we have:

• Provided funding under the Service Development Fund, where both voluntary and statutory agencies were invited to apply for funding to develop a range of services for survivors.
• Working in partnership with two health and local authorities in Scotland to develop pilot projects in order to collect previously unrecorded data on survivors who come into contact with gynaecological and mental health clinics.
• Begun to map out awareness raising and public education through a communications campaign.

Current and future priorities include:

• A National Training Programme for frontline staff.
• Care pathways and mainstreaming of services for survivors.