• South Lanarkshire Housing – call 0800 24 20 42
• North Lanarkshire Housing – call 0800 953 2424

Who is this animation for?

It is for professionals working with a service user where childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is a feature.
This animation illustrates:

• How perpetrators of CSA use grooming and coercion to gain a hold over children and young people
• How perpetrators of CSA manipulate other adults around a child or young person, including non-abusing parents
• The impact on children and young people
• The power imbalance between the perpetrator of CSA and children
• The long-term impact of CSA on adults
• Ways in which adult survivors blame themselves for not realising what is happening and/or not being able to stop it
• How best to support adult survivors of CSA by help survivors understand that the perpetrator was to blame and encourage them to have more control over their lives now

Why an animation?

Although a work of fiction, this animation has allowed us to use women’s experiences using NHS Lanarkshire services as well as research evidence to help professionals understand the experiences of many survivors.

What the resource material contains

The materials include:

• ‘Never too late to tell’ animation
• PDF training notes A4 – available on FirstPort under GBV Services, non NHSL staff please contact GBVTraining@lanarkshire.scot.nhs.uk
• PDF training notes A3 Booklet Style – please contact GBVTraining@lanarkshire.scot.nhs.uk

Who is this animation for?

It is for any professional working with a service user when GBV is a feature in the case.

This animation illustrates:

• How someone who has experienced rape or sexual assault might react in a police interview
• How a professional might respond to a service user if they do not know the effects of trauma
• How this can affect information and evidence gathering, and attitudes to victims
• How ‘secondary’ trauma can affect workers
• The three main parts of the brain and what each part does
• How the brain responds to danger – the survival instinct
• How instinctive ‘fight’, ‘flight’ and ‘freeze’ responses protect us
• Indicators of trauma
• New trauma-informed techniques for professionals to use, and a demonstration

The main messages of the animation

1. Trauma response is the brain in survival mode
2. Repeated abuse can make trauma symptoms worse
3. In response to trauma, people can react in unexpected ways
4. Trauma is a normal human response to abnormal events
5. When working with service users, start from memories and move to the present; start from feelings and then move to the facts

Why understanding trauma is important for working with people

Abuse is a traumatic experience. When a person experiences abuse, their responses to protect them – in the short and longer term – are instinctive. Knowing how and why means that you can recognize these responses and be more effective in what you do.

For example, the animation shows how trauma affects memory recall, which is important if you are trying to investigate a crime.

Why an animation?

We have produced this animation to help you in your work with service users who have experienced Gender-Based Violence, and to help more professionals to understand the effects of abuse. We are running short training sessions, but not everyone can attend these, and so this resource is a good way of spreading the training.

If you have attended the training, it will also help you to share what you have learned through your own networks and organisations.

What the resource material contains

The materials are brief and self-explanatory and include:

• ‘Trauma and the brain’ animation
• PDF information sheets

More information

Please contact Gender-Based Violence Services for

• An introductory training handout on trauma
• A hard copy of the animation on DVD
• Further information about trauma and Gender-Based Violence

Who is this animation for?

• This information is for practitioners in Lanarkshire who are working with families in which there is a domestic abuse perpetrator. The perpetrator could be living with the family or separately. Perpetrators who are separated from their partners often continue to abuse and harass them. And they often use child contact as a way to maintain control over their ex-partner and children.

The main messages of the animation

• This animation aims to encourage safe practice in responding to women and children who are exposed to domestic abuse; to avoid unintended collusion with domestic abuse perpetrators; and to reduce risks which may be inadvertently generated by services if the tactics of control or the impact of trauma are not fully understood.
• It is the business of all front-line workers to know what coercive control means in the context of domestic abuse.
• Causing trauma, and perpetrating domestic abuse as coercive control, are parenting choices on the part of a perpetrator; and these choices directly and indirectly affect the children in the household.
• Practitioners need to be able to recognise and describe the pattern of behaviour of a domestic abuse perpetrator in order to respond to the victims (women and their children) safely and to the perpetrator effectively.
• Practitioners need to recognise and work with women’s resourcefulness as parents because that protects both women and children from a perpetrator’s behaviour.

Why an animation?

• Although a work of fiction, this animation has allowed us to use women’s experiences using NHS Lanarkshire services as well as research evidence to help professionals understand the experiences of many survivors and their children.

More information

• Please contact GBV Services for further guidance and information.