2PS - Prevent & Protect Through Support

Objective

The European Commission’s latest strategy to combat child sexual abuse highlights the harsh reality that, globally, we are ‘losing the battle’ against online child sexual abuse and exploitation. Various projects funded through the EU are working diligently to identify the source of child sexual abuse material and are establishing stronger awareness of the needs and requirements of local education authorities (LEAs) to combat the overloading volume of images, text, media files, etc. However, the prevalence of materials shows no sign of slowing or stabilizing. The adage that prevention is better than cure never seemed more fitting. The 2PS project condemns all forms of sexual abuse and exploitation, and there are no excuses that justify behaviors and actions that harm or victimize children. However, to reduce the number of abused children and those at risk of exploitation, we need to address various challenges. Several of them relate to people with a sexual interest in children and their needs for support and guidance to prevent them from abuse. 2PS, which stands for Prevent & Protect Through Support, is a highly innovative action that offers a paradigm shift in the approach to tackling child sexual abuse and exploitation in Europe. The highly qualified and diverse consortium, together with leading global actors, is committed to laying the foundations for new coherent modus operandi that complement the reactive approaches currently favored. By addressing the support needs of people with a sexual interest in children, sharing the best practices for guidance, therapy, and treatment methods – combined with new training and awareness for frontline support workers and LEAs – we can begin to move preventive actions to the forefront, offering alternative courses of action to existing offenders and individuals at risk of offending, including people with a sexual interest in children. 2PS has set out a multidisciplinary approach for establishing effective prevention actions that support the specific needs of individuals based on their unique circumstances and environment.

Participants

2PS brings together 22 formal partners from 16 European countries (Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and United Kingdom), and an additional 8 are engaged as associated partners (from 6 countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Netherlands, United Kingdom, and USA).

Role

The Institute of Psychology (Vilnius University) brings a highly experienced team with expert knowledge of the Risk Assessment landscape and will contribute directly to the Current practice review and widening activities (WP2) and Training and education (WP5) as well as supporting Communication and awareness raising, dissemination, and exploitation (WP6). The team is also involved in Project management (WP1), Online solutions to increase help-seeking and reduce CSAE (WP4) as well as Legal and ethical guidance (WP7).

Expected results

• Increased understanding of security practitioners and policy makers of the prevalence and of the process leading to child sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation
• Enhanced understanding of the characteristics and key differences between offending and non-offending minor attracted persons.
• Developed cross-culturally validated risk assessment tools for child sexual offenders.
• Innovative and effective solutions, including training curricula, to prevent, detect, and effectively act on child sexual exploitation.
• Improved evidence-based policy making related to the prevention of child sexual exploitation.

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