1. What support is available to children who have suffered sexual abuse and exploitation? OQ57540

Llywydd, the Welsh sexual assault service is led by the NHS, working with the police, social services and specialist third sector organisations. Together they aim to prevent sexual abuse and exploitation of children, to protect child victims and to support abused children into recovery.

Child sexual abuse has wide-reaching and long-lasting effects on physical and mental health. Children who have suffered multiple traumas may develop post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety. During the first six months of 2021-22, there was a 65 per cent increase in the number of National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children child sexual abuse and exploitation referrals, compared to the same six-month period during the previous year. The Welsh Government's action plan on preventing and tackling child sexual abuse is due to conclude during the summer of this year. With the knowledge that children who receive the correct support can recover without long-term effects, we need to keep the momentum going and prioritise the availability of integrated, child-centred specialist sexual abuse services for children. The Lighthouse in north London is one successful example of the Child House model, based on the Barnahus in Iceland, and is the only multi-agency child sexual abuse and exploitation support service of its kind in the UK. Will the First Minister evaluate The Lighthouse service and, using the evidence, explore providing the same service for children in Wales?

Well, Llywydd, I thank Buffy Williams for those important points and that additional question. The interim report of The Lighthouse service is available, but the final evaluation report will not be available until later in this year. We look forward, of course, to seeing what that evaluation says. The basic premise of The Lighthouse model is that it is better to bring services to children rather than children have to visit multiple locations to receive services, and clearly there's a great deal to be said for that. 

Picking up a model from an intensely urban part of London—five London boroughs contribute to The Lighthouse service—and simply dropping it in Wales seems unlikely to me to be the complete answer. In the interim report, Llywydd, it said that there were, on average, 29 referrals a month from the five London boroughs into that service. In Wales, the north Wales and south Wales services between them have an average of just over 19 referrals a month, which, in effect, would mean there would be a single centre for the whole of Wales, and that wouldn't deliver the basic premise of it being more convenient for young people. So, I think, as well as learning the lessons of The Lighthouse service and its success, we have to develop a hub-and-spoke model here in Wales, where there are specialist services for children in that awful position but where there are also services closer to their own homes, able to provide the sort of assistance I outlined in my original answer. 

Gareth Davies. 

Diolch, Llywydd, and it's great to be back in the Chamber. First Minister, unfortunately, the support services available in Wales continue to be woefully inadequate and we are letting our victims down. And whereas we are getting better, we still have a fair way to go. Trauma support has such long waiting lists it may as well not be there. So, First Minister, do you agree that, alongside the gold standard support, we should also be putting greater efforts into prevention? Will you ensure that all children's services adopt a trauma-informed approach, like they do in Scotland? 

Well, Llywydd, I agree, of course, that, particularly in an area like this, it will always be much better to prevent harm from happening than to try to help children to deal with the consequences of harm. I think the Member's question would be more helpful if he relied a good deal less on assertion and provided a little more evidence to underpin what he had to say, because I heard no evidence at all in the first part of his supplementary question, just a series of unsupported assertions.

In terms of trauma-informed practice, well, of course, we have the adverse childhood incident programme, established by my former colleague Carl Sargeant, which has done so much in Wales to make sure that front-line workers in the field of child protection, but far more than that, in housing, and in health, and in other front-line services, have that trauma-informed approach to the work that they do. So, on the substantive points that the Member makes—prevention on the one hand, trauma-informed practice on the other—I agree with what he said this afternoon.