Responding to harmful sexual behaviour in residential care: toolkit
Practical guidance for residential care workers and those supporting children in residential care to respond to harmful sexual behaviour.
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What is this toolkit?
While experiences may vary, most children and young people in residential care receive support to meet their developmental needs and heal from the impacts of trauma.
However, residential care can present unique challenges when harmful sexual behaviour occurs – workers may find themselves supporting both the young person who displayed the behaviour and the young person who has been harmed.
Balancing safety, support, and stability can be challenging, particularly when workers are required to make rapid assessment of risk and safety, implement immediate safety measures, and make placement decisions within often resource-constrained environments.
This tool kit provides practical guidance to support workers in responding to harmful sexual behaviour while keeping the safety and wellbeing of young people at the centre of practice.
Key takeaways
Safety first
Make sure everyone within the residential care home is safe. Sometimes this may mean arranging a temporary alternative placement for the young person who displayed the harmful behaviour.
Work as a team
Supporting young people in residential care is a team effort. Make sure everyone involved understands the safety plan, knows their role, and implements the plan consistently.
Understand the behaviour in context
Sometimes the harmful behaviour may be linked to difficulties with emotional regulation, social boundaries or responses to past trauma. Looking at this broader context helps to respond to the underlying needs, not just the behaviour itself.
Maintain connection
Even when additional supervision is needed, young people should continue to participate in their usual routines, hobbies, sports, and maintain family or community connections.
Support engagement in counselling
Both the young person who displayed the harmful behaviour and the young person who has been harmed will need therapeutic support. You play an important role in helping them engage with that support.
Keep accurate records
Accurate record-keeping is an important part of responding to harmful sexual behaviour. Make sure incidents, disclosures and actions taken are documented promptly and clearly, and where applicable, ensure your statutory reporting requirements are met.
Understanding the issue
Why this matters
Harmful sexual behaviour can occur in any setting. However, residential care can present unique challenges – young people with significant trauma histories and complex support needs often live together, which can increase vulnerability to both engaging in and being impacted by harmful sexual behaviour.
When harmful sexual behaviour occurs in a residential care home, it often represents a significant crisis in which workers are required to undertake risk assessment, safety planning and placement decisions, often under significant time and resource pressures. Responding well can help prevent further harm while supporting the safety, wellbeing and recovery of all young people involved.
Common challenges for workers
Balancing competing needs
Workers may be supporting both the young person who displayed the behaviour and the young person who has been harmed. Meeting the needs of both young people while maintaining safety can be challenging. Focus first on safety, while ensuring both young people have access to trusted adults, therapeutic support and opportunities to be heard in decisions that affect them.
Making decisions under pressure
Harmful sexual behaviour can require immediate decisions about supervision, safety planning and placement, often with limited time and resources. Seek input from therapeutic specialists and child protection where possible and appropriate. Base decisions on safety and wellbeing needs – not organisational needs or constraints – and review arrangements as new information becomes available.
Maintaining stability while managing risk
Young people in residential care often experience significant disruption. Workers may need to increase supervision or separate young people while also preserving routines and relationships wherever it is safe to do so. Routines can help maintain a sense of predictability, minimise stress, and support wellbeing during an already difficult time.
Coordinating a consistent response
Because workers operate across shifts and roles, it is important that everyone has a shared understanding of the safety plan, knows their role, and implements the plan consistently.
Balancing immediate and long-term needs
Workers can feel pulled between managing risk and supporting the young person’s longer-term wellbeing and development. Most young people in residential care have experienced adversity, trauma, and disruption in their lives. Many also have additional developmental needs, including neurodivergence. Workers can find it difficult to balance accountability with a compassionate, developmentally informed response. It is important to address the behaviour clearly while seeking to understand the young person's broader experiences, strengths and support needs.
Conversation starters and practical steps
Where necessary, arrange a temporary alternative placement so the young people can be separated while assessment takes place.
Provide additional supervision when alternative placement is not immediately available. This may mean ensuring the young people are not left alone together or do not share spaces without adult supervision.
Include therapeutic specialists, child protection, HSB or other therapeutic services in decisions about placements.
Base decisions about placement on the safety and wellbeing needs of the young people rather than organisational needs.
Include the young person who has been harmed in decisions about day-to-day living arrangements and activities. Their views should be actively sought and carefully considered throughout the planning process. For example
'Your safety matters to us, what we can do right now to help you feel safe?'
'It may take time to deal with the big feelings you are having right now. I am here to listen and support you.'
Keep routines and relationships as consistent as possible. Young people in residential care often experience significant disruption in their lives. During the move, it is important for both young people to maintain some level of relational stability, for example, the worker they know and trust the most moves or stays with them in the placement.
Develop a clear safety plan, and ensure every worker understands their responsibilities within it.
Use the knowledge of workers who know the young people well to build a clear picture of what is likely to work and what additional supports may be needed.
Ensure clear and regular communication between team members, especially during shift handovers. For example, ensure there is sufficient uninterrupted time for workers between shifts to provide updates, review the safety plan, and discuss any emerging concerns.
Where possible, avoid introducing large numbers of unfamiliar or casual staff during this period. If casual workers are needed, make sure they receive a thorough briefing, so they understand the safety plan and any specific supervision requirements. Any new concerns should be shared and addressed promptly.
Ask yourself:
What do I know about this young person's experiences and developmental needs?
Are there any possible links to difficulties with emotional regulation, social boundaries, relationships, or responses to past trauma?
What support needs sit behind this behaviour?
How can we respond without increasing shame or stigma?
'When you [name the specific behaviour], it hurt [the other person]. Let’s talk about how it’s affecting you and [the other person].'
'You can take steps to change your behaviour. Let’s talk about what’s been happening and what support would help you make different choices.'
Where safe, keep young people participating in their usual routines, hobbies, sports, and family or community activities, with appropriate supervision and support in place.
Avoid restricting young people’s access to social opportunities where it is not necessary for safety.
Preserve important family, community and cultural connections. For example, continue regular family visits, with additional supervision and support in place.
Arrange and support attendance at counselling appointments for both young people – for example, by providing transport or coordinating with services.
Help young people prepare for and reflect on sessions. For example, you could offer emotional support by listening to concerns, answering questions or helping young people process what has been discussed in counselling sessions.
Maintain involvement from workers the young people know and trust throughout the therapeutic process. Stable relationships matter.
Work collaboratively with counsellors to reinforce safety plans and other support strategies within the home environment.
Document incidents, disclosures and actions taken promptly and clearly in your organisation's recording system.
Where needed, make reports in line with your statutory requirements.
Update safety plans and action plans when circumstances change
Share all updates with relevant team members.
Use documentation to ensure everyone is working from the same information and to support future assessment, planning, and placement decision-making.
Reflective prompts
How much do I know about what has happened? What information am I missing, and who can help me with that?
What is the most important step I can take right now to keep everyone safe?
Have I heard from the young person who has been harmed? What do they need to feel safe and supported?
What does the roster look like over the coming days and weeks? How can we provide consistency, predictability, and stability for all young people in the house?
Do we have a clear safety plan in place? Who is leading this? Does everyone understand their responsibilities within the plan?
What resources do we need to implement the safety plan effectively?
How will we know whether the safety plan is working, and when should it be reviewed?
Common questions and misconceptions
Children and young people who have displayed harmful sexual behaviour come from different backgrounds and care settings. Residential care can present unique challenges - young people in residential care often have experienced trauma and attachment disruption, and many have complex developmental and support needs. When young people with these experiences live together, there may be an increased vulnerability to both displaying and being affected by harmful sexual behaviour.
However, harmful sexual behaviour is not inevitable. Young people in residential care are not different to other young people – they have the capacity to learn about body safety, healthy boundaries, consent, and respectful relationships, especially with appropriate support from trusted adults. Residential care workers play an important role in creating safe environments and responding to concerns early. To learn more, explore our Prevent resources.
Whether or not a young person is charged depends on a range of factors such as their age, developmental capacity, the severity of the behaviour and the impact of the harm. In many cases, young people who have displayed harmful sexual behaviour benefit from a therapeutic response that helps them stop the behaviour, address the harm caused, and meet their underlying needs, rather than a purely punitive response.
Although there is research evidence showing that young people in residential care are overrepresented in the youth justice system, this does not mean that they are more likely to engage in offending behaviour. Rather, it may reflect the cumulative impact of trauma, disadvantage, social exclusion and increased contact with statutory systems.
When adequately resourced, residential care can provide a nurturing environment that helps young people heal, develop and thrive.
A history of harmful sexual behaviour does not automatically mean a young person cannot live with other young people in residential care. Placement decisions should be based on individual assessments of risk, safety, developmental history, support needs, and more importantly, strengths.
Accurate records of incidents, responses and outcomes are important for informing these decisions. Importantly, a history of harmful sexual behaviour does not define a young person or determine their future behaviour. Many young people who have displayed harmful sexual behaviour in childhood do not go on to sexually offend, especially with timely therapeutic support.
A placement change can be highly disruptive, affecting young people's relationships, routines and sense of stability. Decisions about alternative placements should therefore be guided by a thorough assessment of safety, wellbeing and the likely impact on all young people involved.
It is important to assess not only the immediate safety needs of the young people involved, but also their need for stability and continuity of care. At the same time, considerations of fairness are important. The young person who has been harmed should not automatically bear the burden of disruption. Their views, wishes, and feelings about what would help them feel safe should be heard and given significant weight in any placement decision.
Where a placement change is necessary, even temporarily, careful transition planning is vital. Young people should be supported to maintain important relationships and routines whenever possible. For example, having trusted workers on shifts more frequently and continuing regular activities can provide care continuity and stability. Where possible, a longer-term placement plan should also be in place to provide clarity and certainty for the future.
Recap: your next steps
Prioritise safety and work as a team
Discuss with your team: what is the first action we can take to keep the young people safe from further harm?
Understand the behaviour in context
Consider what might have triggered the behaviour. Understanding the triggers may help with your safety planning and providing more tailored support.
Seek help early
Therapeutic support can make a difference. Seek help early for both the young person who has been harmed and the young person who displayed the behaviour.
Maintain routine and connection
Support the young people affected by the behaviour to continue their routine and social activities as much as feasible.
Keep accurate records
Document all incidents, reports and action plans promptly and accurately. This will help to inform ongoing assessments and reviews of safety plans and placement decisions.
Useful resources
The Australian Centre for Child Protection has produced a series of modules for carers, to support preventing, identifying and responding to problematic and harmful sexual behaviour. You can view all modules at this link.
More toolkits
For people working with children: practical ways to respond to problematic and harmful sexual behaviour while keeping the child’s wider development, strengths and needs in view.
For anyone dealing directly with harmful sexual behaviour between siblings, cousins or other children in the family, or anyone wanting to learn more about how to respond.
For people working with children and young people: practical ways to respond to problematic and harmful sexual behaviour, make everyday situations safer and keep supporting children after a report.
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Parents and carers
If you’re a parent or carer seeking information or worrying about a behaviour, you're not alone. Find resources to help you understand child sexual development, support safety, and respond to concerns about sexual behaviour.
Children and young people
It’s normal to have questions about your body, feelings, sex and relationships. If you’re a young person looking for information – head here. We’ve got information just for you.