The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Royal Commission) commissioned an independent research report on understanding the reasons why schools fail to identify and report child sexual abuse.

The report focuses significantly on the organisational factors that influence how well children are protected such as a school’s recruitment process, training in recognising and responding to indications of abuse, and formal policies about what people should do both to prevent and react to abuse.

The report entitled ‘Hear no evil, see no evil: understanding failure to identify and report child abuse in institutional contexts’ (Report) was conducted by Professor Eileen Munro of the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Dr Sheila Fish from the Social Care Institute for Excellence.

Human factors

The Report identifies the fundamental human factors that underlie the failure of an organisation (including a school) to identify and report child sexual abuse. These factors are the:

• concealment of abuse by both the perpetrators and children who are unwilling to disclose abuse; and
• cognitive biases that lead to staff members generally viewing a colleague as a ‘good person’ and dismissing indicators of abuse because of this bias.

While these human factors are difficult to address or alter, the Report suggests other ways that schools can increase their success rate of identifying and reporting abuse.

Organisational factors

The Report highlighted four influential aspects of schools that are common factors in their failure to protect students. These are:

• local rationality;
• organisation culture;
• balancing risks; and
• ‘a drift into failure’.

The Report also highlighted that following an abuse or grooming incident or allegation, a school should not merely focus on tightening policies and procedures to try and eradicate the human error noted above, but rather it should look to what the school as a whole can do to improve its reporting culture.

Being aware of these factors can help schools identify weaknesses or areas for improvement in their current policies, procedures and training programs.

Local rationality

The researchers identified ‘local rationality’ as a key factor that affects the reporting of abuse or grooming in an organisation. That is, people are likely to do what they thought was right or sensible at the time based on assumptions perpetuated by the organisation.

For example, in one of the Royal Commission case studies cited in the Report it was apparent that the local rationality that had developed in the organisation in question included assumptions about the unimportance of strictly following procedures. This in turn led to the unreported grooming and abuse of children.

The Report states that “while it is possible to criticise an individual’s approach for being lax, seeking to change this attitude requires a group-wide strategy”.

Organisational culture: avoid complacency 

Promoting a culture of reporting, and impressing on staff the importance of reporting, can help schools avoid being labelled as complacent towards child protection after an allegation of abuse.

Culture within an organisation such as a school is partly created by explicit strategies and messages from senior positions but it is also strongly influenced by ‘covert’ messages that run through the school and influence behaviour.

Creating an environment that is conducive to allowing staff to report suspicions or concerns about possible misconduct, grooming or abuse includes having the right policies, providing guidance to staff and mandating training.

Professor Smallbone, a criminologist and psychologist who is often called to give statements during Royal Commission case studies, recommends that “staff should be engaged in a culture of extended guardianship where the responsibility for prevention is seen as an ordinary responsibility of all adults”.

Implementing this guardianship culture in schools can foster an environment conducive to adults being alert to suspicious behaviour and ready to share concerns.

Balancing risks

Highly prescriptive and hyper-vigilant policies for identifying and reporting abuse may operate against other interests of the school. For example the Report warns that while implementing compulsory reporting for even a low level of concern will identify more cases of abuse, it may come at the cost of including numerous non-abusive cases.

The challenge for all schools is to understand their legal obligations and balance those obligations with encouraging vigilance and reporting.

The researchers suggest that schools should create a culture that understands the inherent ambiguity of grooming behaviour. This will lower the risk of innocent people’s reputations being tainted and staff members failing in their pastoral care obligations because they are fearful of being wrongfully suspected of abuse. In other words, the school ‘drifts into failure’.

‘A drift into failure’

The Report identifies a ‘drift into failure’ as something that most organisations, schools included, will face. It is also part of this balancing act of risks. Maintaining vigilance of child protection issues and duties in the school environment is difficult particularly where workers are asked to report low-level concerns and feel the administrative burden of over-reporting.

Schools should ensure that protection policies are continuously monitored for compliance with changes in law and regulatory guidance. Also, the Report suggests that while there is no quick fix to this common issue of ‘reporting fatigue’, schools can fight the ‘drift into failure’ by continually endorsing protection policies and stressing the importance of vigilance to staff.

What should schools do now?

This Report is available on the Royal Commission website. It provides substantial guidance to schools on how changing a school’s culture to emphasise vigilance, a culture of reporting and personal responsibility for students’ safety can lower the risk of child abuse within the school.

The Report should also act as a catalyst for schools to assess their current policies, procedures and training offered to staff to identify whether their child protection system is at risk of succumbing to these common deficiencies within their school or a ‘drift into failure’.