Anew training programme to help foster and kinship carers in South Australia respond to harmful sexual behaviours in children is being launched alongside a major forum tackling one of the fastest-growing forms of child abuse in Australia.
The event, hosted tonight in Adelaide by Healthy Development Adelaide, will bring together leading experts, including 2025 SA Australian of the Year and Director of the Australian Centre for Child Protection (ACCP), Professor Leah Bromfield. The forum will highlight how to better understand and address a confronting issue that many still find difficult to talk about, but one that is increasingly urgent.
Around half of all child sexual abuse now involves children as perpetrators, according to Professor Bromfield. “Our children today are growing up in a different world to the world many of us grew up in,” she said. “Violent pornography, the pushing of toxic masculinity online, and a throwback to old gender roles – that’s all creating conditions for harmful sexual behaviours by children to rapidly increase.”
The training, developed by the ACCP, will be offered online to roughly 3000 foster and kinship carers across the state. It aims to equip them with the tools to recognise harmful sexual behaviour, respond appropriately, and know where to turn for support. The training was funded in part by the South Australian Government as part of a broader research effort led jointly with the WA Government.
Harmful sexual behaviours in children often go unrecognised, particularly when they fall outside conventional ideas of what constitutes abuse. These behaviours may involve coercion, manipulation, or force, and can cause harm both to the child displaying the behaviour and to others. Recognising such patterns early and offering timely intervention is now seen as critical to reducing their long-term impact.
Katrine Hildyard, South Australia’s Minister for Child Protection, said the issue requires urgent and targeted attention. “The fact that Australia’s fastest growing form of child sexual abuse is that between children is deeply troubling and a call to action,” she said. “It reflects outdated gender norms, harmful misogynist attitudes being spread online, and the disturbing availability of violent pornography targeted at young audiences.”
Hildyard described the new training and tonight’s forum as part of a broader transformation underway in the child protection and family support system. “This is about giving our generous foster and kinship carers the tools to grow their understanding of these behaviours and their causes, and their confidence to respond,” she said. “That’s exactly what tonight’s forum and the training are all about.”
The training is one strand of a wider research partnership involving the ACCP, which is looking into causes, consequences and possible therapeutic interventions. It follows on from findings in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which drew attention to the need for specialised approaches to tackle abuse between children.
Professor Bromfield emphasised that without addressing the environments and messages children are exposed to—especially online—the problem will continue to grow. “It’s really important for us as adults to understand these issues,” she said. “How we can recognise these behaviours, and what to do when we’re worried about a child or young person’s behaviours.”
While the topic remains confronting, both the Government and the ACCP say the worst response is silence. Giving carers, educators, and communities the confidence to speak, act, and guide children toward healthier understandings of relationships and consent may be the most effective protection we can offer.
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