Hansard

I, too, congratulate Johann Lamont on securing this debate and the CPG on all the work that it has done, and I also very much support Margaret Mitchell’s comments.

Childhood sexual abuse is a sobering reminder that our main priority should be to do our best to put in place protections for people from the earliest point possible in their lives—which, unfortunately, means protecting people from other people. Children are probably the most sensitive and vulnerable to abuse—physical, emotional and sexual—as they are unable to defend themselves and are, too often, trapped in their own homes. Our duty and responsibility is to ensure that the measures that we put in place prevent abuse from happening. However, when these things happen, our systems must be ready and able to respond appropriately by always keeping the survivors in mind.

In Selkirk in my area, Children 1st has done commendable work on keeping children safe, helping them respond to their traumas and creating a slightly safer place for them. The organisation also works with survivors of childhood sexual abuse, but the fact that they have to travel many miles across the region to access the services in Selkirk—indeed, some have to travel for two hours—raises the question whether we are providing enough of a service across the country.

We need to build services, perhaps hire staff and establish organisations that can support people, but what is essential is the need for time and a focus on the individual or survivor. Any experience of childhood abuse will have long-term effects on the person in question, and in order for them to be able to come forward and talk about their experiences, they must have a good and trusting relationship with the person—the counsellor—to whom they are revealing their experiences. I am sure that we will all appreciate that such experiences are not taken lightly by anyone, even less by those who have lived through them, and giving people the time to trust that they have all the support that they need is a responsibility not just for the Scottish Government but for all of us. We need to support that approach. The nature of such experiences means that many of these painful memories are buried deep and hidden away and, in order to access them, the person must be able to trust their counsellor or consultant as a result of long-term consultations and meetings that take a very long time.

Of course, one of the biggest obstacles to a healing process for a survivor is the act of disclosure itself. It is not easy for someone to disclose these things and we have to recognise that, as more people come forward, many of them will need a safer environment to allow them to disclose what happened to them in the far past. Perhaps if general practitioners were able to ask a standard question during their standard meetings with patients, that might in itself make disclosure easier for survivors.

The Scottish Government’s new service model for in-care survivors, which will become effective next April, seeks to put in place national health service-led services using psychologists. Open Secret notes that the new service will not have any counsellors working for it and will not provide therapy, but the current limited resources for psychological provision throughout the NHS mean not only that the number of psychologists is limited but that there are even fewer who are able to give abuse survivors the kind of time and dedication that they need. We need consultants who are able to work with childhood abuse survivors in a long-term relationship.

The Government must provide time and adequate provision for survivors of childhood abuse. Children grow up to become adults, and such painful memories can damage people throughout their lives. It is our responsibility through the services that the state can provide to ensure that any person anywhere in Scotland can, at any stage in their lives, come forward and know that they will be heard and helped.