Gap Analysis of Services for Victims and Survivors of Online Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse in Canada

Interviewee Comments re: Services:

• Services are general; not specifically tailored to child victims of online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Gaps in Services: 

• Gaps in knowledge about other services in the community: small pockets of direct service agencies and many people do not know that they exist or what services are provided – not specific to online CSEA.
• Gaps in access to services in general: rural and Indigenous communities have difficulty accessing support services.
• Gaps in access for services for peer-on-peer online CSEA: classification of what counts as ‘abuse’ is restrictive, and funding is not provided for peer-on-peer files.

Interviewee Comments re: Training:

• Staff do not have specific knowledge or training to work with online CSEA: “CSEA is a growing trend and there is a huge lack of training or lack of awareness that this is an issue.”
• Management have attended conferences about online CSEA, which has expanded their knowledge of the effects and challenges faced by this population.
• Front-line staff have little opportunity to attend such conferences.
• Training available for staff is not specific to online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Partnering:

• Partnering between government, police, health, and community agencies to provide services for victims is common.
• Referral of victims for services occurs through formal relationships.
• None specific to providing support for online CSEA victims.

Interviewee Comments re: Promising Practices:

• New initiatives by C3P, such as Project Arachnid and Phoenix 11.
• Court preparation for child victims in general is a promising practice.

Interviewee Comments re: Challenges:

• Identifying and engaging the victims: “often [there are] lots of victims that aren’t identified” – how to reach those victims and connect them with support services.
• Lack of experience: hard to identify unique challenges they may face without experience.
• Lack of knowledge and research as to the unique challenges that victims of online CSEA face due to the ongoing nature of the crime committed against them.
• Current evidence-based mental health therapy does not adequately address unique struggles on victims of online CSEA.
• Same challenges as in other cases. One interviewee stated there were no unique challenges regarding providing support for victims of online CSEA as challenges were the same: getting in touch with victims, lack of participation of victims in the process, managing all of the calls (i.e., lots of victims), and organizing the support services.

Interviewee Comments re: Services:

• Support services are general and typical to all crime victims.
• Victim service supports are offered to adult survivors of historical abuse, which may include victims of online CSEA; services for adult survivors also not specific to online CSEA.
• Therapists provide counselling services for victims of child sexual abuse, but those services are not specific to online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Gaps in Services:

• Sometimes communication and collaboration between organizations needs improvement so that service providers and in turn victims know what services are available – not specific to online CSEA.
• Online CSEA is a “growing trend” where there is a “huge lack of training or lack of awareness that this is an issue.”
• Online CSEA cases are often complex, which may result in a duplication of services or no service at all due to a “lack of cohesive collaboration.”

Interviewee Comments re: Training:

• Training is available for sexual exploitation of young people, human trafficking and gangs, which includes awareness of the use of technology in these crimes.
• Mentioned Boost CYAC webinars as a resource for staff.
• No training specific to online CSEA.
• Training is provided based on staff interest and conditional upon available funding, which is often limited.

Interviewee Comments re: Partnering:

• Partnering is a standard practice and crucial to successful victim support in general.

Interviewee Comments re: Promising Practices:

• General promising practice of client-centred, trauma-informed approaches as opposed to sole focus on charges and convictions. Should be expanded to include training for justice personnel in this approach.
• General promising practices of mobile support services to reach more communities.

Interviewee Comments re: Challenges:

• Lack of specific intervention strategies for online CSEA victims.
• Variability of impacts specific to online CSEA on victims and lack of guidance for how to best address them.
• Not knowing who the perpetrator is and only having a victim to work with in some cases of luring and extortion.
• Difficulty identifying victims of online CSEA.
• General challenges in providing staff with resources needed to support all victims.
• Some challenges with partnering with other organizations to provide support to Indigenous communities, such as working with different bands and the need for better coordination – not specific to online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Services:

• No specialized services for cases of online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Gaps in Services:

• No direct support services specific to online CSEA.  
• C3P identified as providing good resources and commended for bringing together survivors to learn more about their needs, but significant gap identified in getting that information to service providers in a way that would result in appropriate implementation.
• Lack of adequate training available for counsellors working with victims of online CSEA.
• Lack of evidence-based treatment protocols to properly and effectively address potential ongoing trauma of online CSEA, as general trauma treatment is designed to understand historical trauma and not ongoing trauma.
• Lack of means and opportunity to learn from other counsellors and support service providers with experience with online CSEA cases.
• Lack of funding in general, but also specific to online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Training:

• No training available specific to online CSEA.
• Need training and a protocol regarding how to ask the right questions that may uncover online CSEA when working with victims.

Interviewee Comments re: Partnering:

• Working toward enhanced partnering with a range of community support service providers via CYAC model.
• Mentioned partnering with community agencies that work with families of sexual assault victims and noted that expertise in online CSEA is lacking in this network.

Interviewee Comments re: Promising Practices:

• Promising that information from survivors is being gathered by C3P – this information should be implemented via the CYAC model, and then evaluated for effectiveness.

Interviewee Comments re: Challenges:

• Professional development and training for clinicians.
• Lack of research to provide an evidence base upon which to build best practices.
• Need for best practices to be developed, which includes providing a forum for clinicians to discuss experiences with providing services, especially counselling, to online CSEA victims.
• Lack of a mechanism for mentorship to convey best practices and build capacity among staff.
• Lack of guidance regarding ethical challenges of working with online CSEA victims, such as when and if one should inform a victim that their sexual abuse images have been distributed online.

Interviewee Comments re: Services:

• General victim services are available, none specific to online CSEA.
• Counselling service providers support all victims of abuse and exploitation and their families – no specific services for victims of online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Gaps in Services:

• Rural communities always suffer from insufficient service providers to meet needs.
• Lack of sufficient funding for counselling services, both general and specific to online CSEA.
• Lack of qualified counsellors who are trained to help victims of online CSEA.
• Lack of centralized location for victims and survivors to receive support, both in general and regarding online CSEA.
• Lack of counsellors available to work with offenders and offending youth, both in general and regarding online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Training:

• Ongoing training is available regarding sexual assault, but none specific to online CSEA.
• Mechanisms for sharing information about impact of online CSEA on victims include web-based resources, and presentations to other organizations were noted, however no training is available regarding best practices for support or treatment for victims of online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Partnering:

• Strong collaborative network among organizations providing support services for victims in general – not specific to online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Promising Practices:

• No promising practices identified specific to online CSEA.
• General promising practices include receiving referrals as early as possible in the process so that support can be provided at the outset.
• Web-based training resources and training collaborations across organizations are a general promising practice for delivering specialized training.

Interviewee Comments re: Challenges:

• Challenge to ensuring that the policies and practices are reflective of current evidence, particularly with regard to online crimes.
• Specific challenges regarding offences that qualify for compensation because services are based on offence type and not all are compensable offences.

Interviewee Comments re: Services:

• General victim services offered, with support services for child sexual abuse, but none for online CSEA specifically.

Interviewee Comments re: Gaps in Services:

• General issues with service delivery include lack of available counsellors in some communities making it difficult to connect a victim to a local counsellor.
• Lack of counsellors to serve specific Indigenous communities – none specific to online CSEA.
• Do not see many cases of online CSEA, and so counsellors generally do not have expertise or even experience with online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Training:

• Training on specific topics is usually requested by staff, and interviewee noted that given how rare online CSEA cases are, there was no demand for training re: online CSEA, due to limited time and funding.
• Training regarding sexual abuse is available, but does not include training specific to online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Partnering:

• Partnering among victim support service providers is common.
• Community partnership models include provincial Anti-Violence Initiative, whereby communities establish an Anti-Violence Committee consisting of representatives from provincial and local community supports. These committees engage in awareness-raising and training projects, but so far have not had any focus on online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Promising Practices:

• Has not heard of any promising practices specific to online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Challenges:

• General challenges providing victim support services would also apply to online CSEA, such as difficulties with transportation (e.g., helping victims get to support services, funding for transportation, geography and weather making connecting child victim with support services even more challenging).
• Lack of awareness among support service providers: no response from staff regarding services for victims of online CSEA for this report.
• Specific challenges include coordination of out-of-province supports for victims of luring or other online CSEA where offender is being tried elsewhere.

Interviewee Comments re: Services:

• General victim services are provided but nothing specific to online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Gaps in Services:

• General gaps in service arise from problems with communication; victims can “fall through the cracks because someone thinks they have referred them but they haven’t.”
• Some service providers do not realize that the non-consensual distribution of intimate images is a criminal offence.

Interviewee Comments re: Training:

• Online CSEA is not included in annual trainings related to sexual violence and violence against children.

Interviewee Comments re: Partnering:

• Referrals are routinely made to other community counselling and support service providers – no services exist specifically for online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Promising Practices:

• Unaware of any promising practices specific to online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Challenges:

• An education and technology resource to teach young people about the implications of creating and sharing self-produced online sexual images is needed.

Complexity of cases in which a young person feels both victimized and complicit.

Interviewee Comments re: Services:

• Boost CYAC provides general victim services, as well as the Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) Counselling Program.
• Victim Quick Response Program (VQRP) provides supports for victims of sexual assault – not specific to online CSEA.
• Cedar Centre offers treatment for adult survivors of interpersonal childhood trauma – not specific to online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Gaps in Services:

• Lack of knowledge about available services for victims of online CSEA.
• Lack of clinicians to provide specialized support for victims of online CSEA.
• Clinicians that register with the ICE Counselling Program are not required to have any specialized knowledge, training, or experience with online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Training:

• There is no training specific to online CSEA.
• Trauma training in general is a costly investment for most agencies.

Interviewee Comments re: Partnering:

• Provincial victim services partners with Boost CYAC to provide services to victims and survivors of online CSEA.
• Victim services rely on Boost CYAC to match online CSEA victims with counselling and court support services.

Interviewee Comments re: Promising Practices:

• Successful and promising partnership between provincial victim services and Boost CYAC, specifically the ICE Counselling Program.
• The provincial ICE strategy offers annual conferences on online CSEA; has two specialized crown attorneys, which results in significant advances in the prosecution of the crimes.
• Working with adult survivors of abuse is promising because of their insights about how childhood trauma has impacted their development over their lifespan.

Interviewee Comments re: Challenges:

• Challenges matching services to young people’s needs.
• Youth who are not interested in or able to access services.
• Whether youth can manage the repetitive nature of therapy.
• Need for alternate methods of service delivery (e.g., telephone and internet counselling) to meet the needs of some victims.
• Appropriateness of treatment. Some victims, for example, have abuse images that may be in perpetual circulation online, which adds complexity to the trauma experience of the victim and is unique to online CSEA.
• Child sexual abuse, both online and offline, continues to be a taboo topic.
• Difficulty accessing support services for those living in rural and remote locations.
• Difficulty with definitions regarding online CSEA within and across sectors and among service providers.
• Lack of capacity of organizations to provide support services and meet the needs of victims of sexual crimes in general.

Interviewee Comments re: Services:

• General victim services are available with none specific to online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Gaps in Services:

• Lack of access to long-term counselling supports and/or intensive treatment programs that specialize in online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Training:

• Staff receive training specific to victims of child and adult sexual victimization, not online CSEA.
• Staff have attended initiatives offered by C3P, for example Childhood Sexual Abuse and Exploitation: Reducing the Numbers.

Interviewee Comments re: Partnering:

• PEI has created a Child Sexual Abuse Protocol that provides guidelines and procedures for a coordinated response to child sexual abuse. While this protocol includes some elements of online CSEA (i.e., luring and pornography), it does not appear to have any specific guidelines for this type of victimization.
• The multi-sectoral Child Sexual Abuse Advisory Committee provides feedback on intervention models and response protocols or child sexual abuse – not specific to online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Promising Practices:

• This interviewee was not aware of any promising practices related to online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Challenges:

• Access to counselling and support specific to victims of online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Services:

• Service providers work closely with the dedicated unit within the Service de Police de la Ville de Montreal that investigates cases of online CSEA, as well as a separate unit dedicated to investigating human trafficking. Therapists provide group support and work one-on-one with victims and their families – not specific to online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Gaps in Services:

• Indemnisation des victimes d’actes criminels (IVAC) is the victim compensation service in Quebec, which includes funding for counselling for children who are victims of crimes. Funding for counselling is only available for contact offences, therefore some variants of online CSEA do not qualify for this funding.

Interview Comments re: Training:

• No training specific to online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Partnering:

• Relevant services are provided in-house and are co-located with police services.
• Counselling and support for victims and families is provided by therapists that are located within the organization.

Interviewee Comments re: Promising Practices:

• Efficacy of treatment is evaluated within the organization by a research chair; treatment is predominantly CBT and none specific to online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Challenges:

• Compensation for victims of non-contact crimes (i.e., luring and grooming) is not available.
• Lack of support services for victims of non-contact crimes and their families.
• Explaining to parents that their child is not eligible for victim service support.

Interviewee Comments re: Services:

• General victim services are provided including a specialized Victim Service position in each CYAC – none specific to online CSEA.
• Service providers refer victims to C3P regarding removing online images, mainly peer-to-peer or intimate image distribution.
• Counselling support is offered for victims or survivors of trauma – none specific to online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Gaps in Services:

• No specific training regarding online CSEA for service providers including police, counsellors, etc.

Interviewee Comments re: Training:

• All paid staff are required to attend three weeks of training that is co-developed between Victim Services and Saskatchewan Polytechnic, which regularly adds elements when there are new emerging issues to deal with – online CSEA is anticipated to become part of this training, but has not yet been added.

Interviewee Comments re: Partnering:

• Many examples of communication and collaboration across different branches of the Ministry of Corrections and Policing, the Community Engagement branch and within the Community Safety and Well-Being branch – none specific to online CSEA.
• Some prevention and education activities related to human trafficking and sex workers.

Interviewee Comments re: Promising Practices:

• Specific training for child trafficking is now starting to be available.
• Online CSEA is an emerging issue and so service providers are beginning to pay attention.
• The Saskatchewan Child Abuse Protocol (2017) outlines everyone’s responsibilities, and includes exploitation in its mandate.

Interviewee Comments re: Challenges:

• Lack of awareness across sectors about online CSEA.
• How to get ahead of the curve and support young victims because online CSEA is far more pervasive than people realize.
• How to encourage young people to report incidences of online CSEA.
• Remembering that behind every image is a victim.
• Concerns for victims who have to provide testimony and the way they are treated by defence council (i.e., questioning).
• Communication challenges between different courts when dealing with the same victim.
• Lack of regulation of social media platforms regarding access to abuse images.
• Normalization of online deviance and pedophilia.
• Interconnection between online CSEA and human trafficking.

Interviewee Comments re: Services:

• General victim support services are provided.
• Limited experience with online CSEA.
• Victims of online CSEA are typically seen at schools and through Child Protection Agencies.

Interviewee Comments re: Gaps in Services:

• Service providers’ knowledge of the technological aspects of providing support to victims of online CSEA, for instance, how to get pictures taken down, and how to get evidence.
• Need for training and to be continuously informed about what young people are doing online.
• Informing young people about their rights regarding sexual images and sexually explicit text message including what is criminal and what is not.
• Lack of consistent response from RCMP regarding non-image text messages between youth.

Interviewee Comments re: Training:

• There are several multi-disciplinary community trainings about child abuse and effective response offered through this organization – no training specific to online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Partnering:

• Organization is located in a very small community and there are formal agreements with some agencies, which results in extensive community involvement, interagency teams, and collaboration between service providers – none specific to online CSEA.

Interviewee Comments re: Promising Practices:

• Programs offered by C3P on peer-on-peer sexual exploitation.
• Access to web-based resources provided by C3P.

Interviewee Comments re: Challenges:

• Need for service providers to develop greater awareness about technology and how it is utilized by young people.
• How to encourage and support disclosure with young people in online cases that are peer-to-peer.