You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The Child Sexual Abuse Team based at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, London, has been the single most influential British group of professionals developing and publicising assessment and therapeutic work for sexually abused children. An earlier book heavily influenced by the Team's perceptions was published by the CIBA Foundation in 1984 and presented a family-systems based account of investigatory and therapeutic work in cases of intrafamilial sexual abuse; this earlier book has had a profound impact on policy and practice in this country. The new book represents an expansion and updating of this material; it has the same orientation towards systemic work but also demonstrates some responsiveness to criticisms made of the Team and attempts to introduce some evaluative data.
The book consists of a series of loosely linked chapters written by various combinations of the editorial group. It begins with a conceptual account of ‘sexual abuse, sexuality and childhood’ and then moves briskly through basic characteristics of sexual abuse and a systems framework of causation. The heart of the book is eight chapters on various aspects of assessment and intervention, oriented practically and including many case illustrations; there are additional examples of assessment, family therapy and group work in the appendices. The final chapter presents some outcome data from the series of cases seen by the Team, data which is rather weak but which is a recognisable and unusual attempt at real evaluation. Throughout the book, the style is clear, the content informative and open about the Team's approach. Guidelines for prac tice are given in helpful detail and there is enough variation in approach for new ideas to be gleaned from all the separate chapters. As an account of the activities of this highly skilled team, of their experience working with large numbers of sexually abused children and their families over a substantial time, and of the ways in which the fam