Birkbeck academic awarded £1.4 million for study on child sexual abuse recovery
The study will produce the first social, cultural and medical history into recovery from childhood sexual abuse in the second half of twentieth century Britain and Ireland.
Senior Research Fellow, Dr Ruth Beecher, has been awarded a prestigious Career Development Award by the Wellcome Trust. The £1.4 million grant will fund an interdisciplinary research project entitled, Child Sexual Abuse and Recovery: Historicising Survivor and Practitioner Experiences (1950-2022).
The project aims to challenge the current emphasis on medical and psychiatric models of recovery, which often focus solely on psychological 'damage’ and clinical treatments. Dr Beecher's study, co-produced with survivor and practitioner partners including Survivors’ Voices, Survivors’ in Transition, The Flying Child, and the Association of Child Protection Professionals, will examine the wider social, cultural, and medical history of child sexual abuse (CSA) recovery. The project prioritises the voices and experiences of survivors, aiming to understand the multitude of ways that they achieve emotional and physical equilibrium.
"Child sexual abuse is not an illness or a physical wound. And yet recovery is spoken about in a language borrowed from medicine," commented Dr Beecher. "We hope that this research will not only offer a rare insight into the experiences of survivors and frontline practitioners, who are commonly left out of the historical record, and will also bring the two groups together to learn from past experiences and influence present-day practice and policy."
The research will employ mixed methods to paint a comprehensive picture. Historical research will build a CSA survivor archive, while fieldwork with survivor participants will provide insights into their lived experiences. Observations of practitioners across various support services and new oral histories from both survivors and practitioners will further enrich the study. The holistic approach aims to explore methods of support beyond medication and therapy, including education, financial stability, spirituality, relationships, play, and creativity.
An important component of the project is piloting and evaluating a new approach to training and supporting arts and humanities’ teams in handling sensitive and complex research topics. The training will focus on fostering a supportive and well-functioning team environment, understanding the complexities of the research, and building a sustainable culture of learning.
The four-year Wellcome-funded project aims to make a significant impact on the how CSA survivors’ experiences have been understood, and to influence future practices and policies to better meet their diverse needs.