Assessing risk of victim crossover with children and young people who display harmful sexual behaviours

Assessments of children and young people who display harmful sexual behaviours need to consider - at a broad level - the safety of other children at home, in the community and in the wider family. To date, issues of victim selection have been marginalised in the relevant literature. Drawing on our experience of working with this client group, this article uses four composite case studies that reflect the heterogeneity of children and young people who sexually abuse and applies recent research findings about intra- and extra-familial sexual abuse to make suggestions for good practice in assessment and intervention with young people who display harmful sexual behaviours in different settings.