On 19 June 2017, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Royal Commission) released a report on a research project carried out by Professors Patrick Parkinson and Judy Cashmore titled “Assessing the different dimensions and degrees of child sexual abuse in institutions” (the Report). We discussed the Report in last week's School Governance article Latest Royal Commission Report on Child Sexual Abuse Risk: Is your school a high risk institution? As explained in that article, the Report identified the four dimensions of the risk of child sexual abuse as:

• Situational risk;
• Vulnerability risk;
• Propensity risk; and
• Institutional risk.

The Report concluded by rating institutions and activities using their risk levels in all four dimensions to illustrate high, medium and low risk institutions. The Report identifies what are referred to as “total institutions” which are described as having a combined elevated risk level. Boarding schools are identified as total institutions that present a high cumulative risk of child sexual abuse in terms of both adult-child and child-to-child abuse. This article looks at how the findings of the Report explain each type of risk and how they are amplified in the boarding school context.

Boarding schools: Highest level of situational risk

There are two elements that affect situational risk: the opportunity to be alone with children unseen and the opportunity to develop emotional relationships with children. Additionally, situational risks can be classified as either modifiable or unmodifiable. Unmodifiable risks include those which arise in activities that, by their very nature, tend to allow more opportunity for a predator to be alone with a child and therefore cannot be modified. For example, residential and boarding house settings, as the nature of 'home’ life is such that time alone with children is a normal part of that environment.

Modifiable risks are those that with some effort, the inherent situational risk can be reduced. Child safe organisations are those that have sought to minimise the modifiable situational risks to the extent that is reasonably possible. The Report states clearly that "there are few institutional settings in which the risk of abuse is unmodifiable."

Figure 1. Elements of situational risk for various activities and institutions on page 24 of the Report places boarding schools in the highest level of situational risk. The Report uses Royal Commission case studies to demonstrate that residential settings, including boarding schools, give rise to greater opportunities for the sexual abuse of children and also identifies that these settings elevate the risk of child-to-child abuse in these settings given the varied age levels and lack of traditional, trusted parental protection.

Vulnerability risk: Age of boarders makes them vulnerable

Vulnerability risks arise where an organisation is working with children and young people who are, according to available research evidence, at a greater risk of sexual abuse than other children.  Vulnerability risk often intersects with situational risk, as some vulnerable children may be clustered in residential settings (like boarding houses) leading to an elevation of risk.

The main factor affecting vulnerability risk is the age of the child – research shows that young children are less vulnerable to sexual abuse than upper primary and lower secondary school aged children. This again illustrates how boarding schools, who usually cater for grade levels between Year 5 and Year 12, are in the elevated risk category. Other influencing factors include: intellectual and other forms of disability, a background of family breakdown or dysfunction, a prior history of maltreatment and a strong motivation not to disclose.

Figure 2. Vulnerability risk on page 33 of the Report uses the same format as Figure 1 to demonstrate the varying level of vulnerability risk in various institutional settings, using the age of the children as the x-axis of the graph. Again, boarding schools that cater to upper primary and/or secondary school aged children are at the top of the medium vulnerability risk scale – this is above special education schools and church, school or residential camps.

Propensity risk: Living arrangements increase risk of abuse

Propensity risk arises from a greater-than-average clustering of those with a propensity to abuse children. The two main factors affecting the assessment of propensity risk in a school context include the staffing profile of the school in terms of gender and situations where an adult is living in a residential setting with children.

The Report identifies that gender is the most significant issue in propensity risk. While some women sexually abuse children, the great majority of perpetrators of child sexual abuse are male. Therefore, schools with a predominantly male staffing profile have a greater risk of child sexual abuse than those with a predominantly female staffing profile. Even greater is the risk for these schools who also have residential boarding facilities – elevating their situational and vulnerability risk as well.

Generally, all-boys’ boarding schools have a greater percentage of male staff than co-ed or all-girls’ schools and therefore, in terms of situational, vulnerability and propensity risks, child sexual abuse risk in an all-boys’ boarding school is significantly elevated. In its conclusion, the Report states that "in contrast to a boys’ boarding school or boarding house, the risk associated with a girls boarding school or a boarding house is much lower if, as might be expected, the staffing profile is female."

The Report is careful to say that this does not mean that institutions should be discouraged from having largely male staff, however institutions that have elevated vulnerability or situational risk profiles (like a school with boarding facilities) need to give particular attention to strategies that will moderate that risk.

Institutional risk: Culture, culture, culture

Institutional risk stems from the characteristics of an institution that may make abuse more likely to occur, or less likely to be dealt with properly if disclosed. The Royal Commission has previously commented on key factors that elevate the institutional risk of child sexual abuse in child-related organisations in a number of its report and research projects. For example, the Royal Commission’s 10 key elements for a child safe organisation offers 10 risk controls to commonly identified institutional risks.

The Report identifies that there are numerous factors that are relevant to the assessment of institutional risk. The three key examples of factors that contribute to a high institutional risk of child sexual abuse are:

• Factors that impair prevention efforts;
• Situations where organisational ethos is such that child protection is not given priority; and
• Organisational cultures that facilitate misconduct.

Institutions with high institutional risk are those with a tendency towards inadequate protective responses and often have the following characteristics:

• A culture of not listening to or respecting children;
• A strong ethos of group allegiance;
• An aura of respectability that makes it very difficult for others to believe disclosures;
• Inadequate internal disciplinary processes;
• A culture that discourages complaints; and
• Invisible child protection and complaints policies.

The Report offers extensive information and research findings on these characteristics and how institutions can remedy them. Of particular importance is the need to remedy a culture where the organisation has child protection and complaints policies to satisfy regulators or insurers, but are of little value as they are not accepted or implemented.

Boarding schools: Total institutions

Boarding schools fall into the upper-medium and high risk categories for all four dimensions of risk and due to the nature of their activities and operation they are described as 'total institutions.

The Report identifies four reasons why boarding schools have such a high cumulative risk of child sexual abuse in comparison to other institutions.

1. The residential context gives ample opportunity for perpetrators to be alone with children without being observed.
2. Children are completely under the authority of the adults and have no reasonable alternative but to comply with demands.
3. The children have no parents actively in their lives during the school term to whom they could disclose abuse or to whom they could turn for protection.
4. There is little oversight or influence over the norms of the boarding school from the outside environment.

A boarding school in which staff and children are co-resident, where there is a strong hierarchy of power and authority, a strong sense of allegiance to the good name of the school and which has child protection policies that are hard to access and scarcely mentioned beyond initial teacher induction, would score highly on those elements.

Operating in a high-risk environment

The nature of the boarding school environment is unlikely to change dramatically in the near future – residential care will always present increased situational and vulnerability risk. However, boarding schools can take significant steps toward moderating their risk including, as a first step, auditing their boarding school’s child protection policies by asking the following questions:

• Do they apply to boarders and the boarding school?
• Does the school conduct risk assessments for all boarding facilities?
• Does the school effectively communicate its expectations for staff behaviour with boarders?
• Are there enforced disciplinary processes for breaches of school policy or procedure?

AS 5725:2015 Boarding Standard: Benchmark on child protection

Child protection does not occur in a vacuum. It is important that child protection policies, procedures, practices, work systems and culture touch all areas of a school’s operations, including the boarding school.

In July 2015 AS 5725:2015 Boarding Standard for Australian schools and residences (the Boarding Standard) was released. The Boarding Standard includes a section on child protection requirements for boarding schools. Key authors of the Standard acknowledged the historical shortcomings of boarding schools across the country illuminated by the Royal Commission. The Standard is a great place to start for schools looking to improve the operation of their boarding school to the Australian standard level.

Want to know more?

For more information about general Child Protection Risk Management in Schools, see our briefing paper here. CompliSpace Managing Director David Griffiths is presenting at the Boarding Australia National Conference on 7 July 2017. For more information and to register for this event click here.

For more information about the Boarding Standard, see our briefing paper here: AS 5725:2015 Boarding Standard for Australian schools and residences.