The Risk of Online Sexual Abuse (ROSA) Project is an action research project delivered by Stop it Now!, a child protection charity, which looks to explore technology-assisted harmful sexual behaviour (TA-HSB) among children and young people. The project was launched in 2018 by the Lucy Faithfull Foundation and was based in Glasgow. The project worked with young people between the ages of 11-19 who had exhibited TA-HSB, to find out about the background to their offending, how to help them not offend again, and how best to put this knowledge into prevention work more widely. The project was based in HALT, a statutory service in Glasgow for children and young people who have displayed HSB.
The ROSA Project worked with 68 young people at risk of HSB allowing them access to the Inform Young People programme. This programme involved 6–10 sessions of one-to-one early intervention psychoeducational support.
In addition to direct work with young people in Glasgow who had displayed TA-HSB, the ROSA Project was supplemented with wider proactive and capacity-building work with a secondary school in Glasgow. The project was evaluated by the Children and Young People’s Centre for Justice (CYCJ) at the University of Strathclyde. The findings of the project include positive outcomes associated with ROSA, including a reduction in risk, changed behaviours and reduced criminalisation. There was also a sense that young people had improved their knowledge and grown in confidence when it came to using the internet, although there were some reservations around whether they could implement their knowledge in practice in the longer term. The intention is to use the lessons learned to improve awareness of the programme and develop the work with schools.