Lucy Faithfull Foundation: Everyone’s Safer: the final report

In June 2020, on the back of the ‘me too’ movement, Everyone’s Invited made headlines, highlighting the extent of harmful sexual behaviour in schools. This led to the Government instructing Ofsted to carry out a rapid review of sexual abuse, including peer-on-peer harassment, sexual violence, and online abuse in schools and colleges.

The Lucy Faithfull Foundation – a UK charity that works to prevent all forms of child sexual abuse – undertook a three-year action-research project in collaboration with the University of Surrey, supported by the KPMG Foundation. The project covered the period January 2022 to December 2024, and the final report has now been published. Lauranne Nolan, Associate Solicitor and Safeguarding Lead in the Keoghs Specialist Abuse Team has considered the findings in the report and its recommendations.

The Project

Over the course of the three-year project, the Lucy Faithfull Foundation worked directly with 30 schools (10 schools each year of the project) and thousands of staff, students and parents to test and refine effective strategies for tackling harmful sexual behaviour and creating safe school environments.

The project had three main aims:

1. To help schools respond well when an incident of harmful sexual behaviour occurs.
2. To produce evidence and insights to influence government and education strategy.
3. To make schools safer places for children and young people and prevent harmful sexual behaviour.

Leading on from the above, the project wanted to achieve four outcomes:

1. Comprehensive and effective support for all individuals affected by incidents of harmful sexual behaviour – including students, parents/carers, and staff.
2. Access to expert knowledge, research, and shared practice to help schools respond to and prevent harmful sexual behaviour.
3. Improved understanding among statutory agencies of the challenges schools face, leading to more effective support.
4. Wider sharing of resources and evidence to strengthen the overall approach to tackling harmful sexual behaviour in schools.

The findings

Year 1 – recognising the challenge: In the first year, the project worked with participating schools to assess needs and raise awareness of harmful sexual behaviour. Early findings showed that many schools were anxious about their capacity to identify and address harmful sexual behaviour effectively. Staff and students sometimes held conflicting views on what behaviours constitute harmful sexual behaviour or how serious the problem was, revealing a ‘gap’ in understanding between adults and young people. These insights highlighted that any effective response must empower and support safeguarding staff while also bridging the perspective gap between students and adults, so that everyone is ‘on the same page’ about the realities of peer sexual behaviours. The focus was therefore on building staff knowledge and confidence and ensuring young people’s voices were heard.

Year 2 – building partnerships and capacity: The second year placed greater emphasis on understanding and developing a multi-agency and whole-community approach to harmful sexual behaviour prevention. It involved engagement with families, specialist services and local safeguarding partners.

Year 3 – implementing strengths-based strategies: In the final year, the project moved from diagnosis and groundwork to the implementation of targeted interventions, with a focus on strengths-based, public health-oriented approaches to harmful sexual behaviour. It promoted proactive education, positive culture change, and restorative practices.

The recommendations

Considering all the information collated across the three years, the final report made the following recommendations:

1. Provide sustained professional development, practical tools, and support to teachers and safeguarding staff, ensuring they are not working in isolation. The report found that when safeguarding leads and educators felt equipped and supported, it enabled them to be confident and consistent in their responses, which in turn meant students reported greater trust, and school cultures became more responsive.
2. Encourage and resource schools to adopt a whole-school, public health approach to harmful sexual behaviour with support from external agencies, supported by clear policy and external partnerships. This requires clear leadership commitment and policy support to encourage a shift from reactive compliance to holistic prevention. This includes investing in staff training, ensuring PSHE/RSE curriculum time is protected, and developing links with external experts.
3. Schools should be supported to integrate restorative processes and focus on promoting positive behaviour (what we want to see, not just what to avoid). Schools should review their behaviour and safeguarding policies to ensure they allow for restorative and educative responses to harmful sexual behaviour in appropriate cases, rather than mandating zero tolerance in all instances.
4. Integrate gender transformative education into RSE and school culture, ensuring boys are included constructively, and staff are supported to lead these conversations. Schools and education authorities should integrate healthy masculinity programmes as a core component of harmful sexual behaviour prevention. This can include professional development for teachers on gender norms and facilitation skills to engage boys, and age-appropriate curriculum materials that encourage reflection on masculinity and gender stereotypes.
5. Strengthen RSE provision through sustained curriculum time, staff training, scenario-based learning, and structured opportunities for student voice and feedback. Effective education on healthy relationships and consent is a key part of prevention. Schools should ensure that Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) is delivered regularly, resourced adequately, and taught by confident, trained staff. This includes integrating topics such as consent, image-sharing, online harms and bystander action into a curriculum that builds skills as well as knowledge. By equipping students with the language and skills to express discomfort, set boundaries and seek help, schools can create conditions for earlier intervention and reduce subsequent harm.

Keoghs comment

The findings of the report show that schools and their students are eager to make positive changes. The report interacted with a small number of schools but was able to identify common themes. To make progress and implement the findings nationally will of course take time. In addition, many schools find themselves under pressure, under-resourced and unsure where to start in a complex and sensitive area in which sexual harassment and abuse has become normalised and widespread.

The Lucy Faithfull Foundation remains committed to advocating on behalf of schools, students and families to ensure that the lessons from the project help to influence government policy and guidance. They will also continue to offer a dedicated school callback service to all UK schools through the Stop It Now helpline.

In relation to the prospect of increased civil claims arising from peer-on-peer allegations, schools and Local Authorities should consider implementing new strategies around RHSE, staff training, and opportunities for student voice and feedback.