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Cate Bailey (Deakin University), Martine Powell (Deakin University)

Concern about the high level of child sexual abuse in Australian Indigenous communities has been strongly voiced both by Indigenous community members and by service and government agencies. Despite this, reliable information to evaluate child sexual abuse case outcomes has been difficult to obtain. Under-reporting and the difficulties children experience in disclosing abuse are issues for cases of child sexual abuse generally, but are even more apparent in Indigenous communities.

This presentation outlines the evaluation strategy of a trial intervention to address child sexual abuse in remote Indigenous communities. Operation RESET was a joint initiative of the Western Australian Police Sex Crime Division and the Department for Child Protection and Family Support's ChildFIRST service, and operated in remote towns and communities in Western Australia. The proactive, collective impact approach between government, nongovernment organizations, and communities aimed to empower families and communities to improve the overall safety and well-being of children, as well as acknowledge the underlying causes and contexts of child sexual abuse.

The evaluation was conducted in four stages: 1) A qualitative assessment using structured interviews with a range of stakeholders on at the primary site of the program; 2) A quantitative assessment comparing numbers of reports and arrests by intervention vs non-intervention areas across the state; 3) The development and evaluation of a questionnaire style assessment tool to determine attitudes to child sexual abuse in remote Indigenous communities; and 4) A qualitative assessment of interviews with Indigenous stakeholders over three intervention sites.  This presentation will discuss the importance of situating the evaluation in the social and cultural landscapes of Indigenous communities and Indigenous research, and underlines the importance of collaboration with these groups within this context.