Annual report showcases The Lucy Faithfull Foundation’s work to protect children

The latest figures from The Lucy Faithfull Foundation outline the impact of the range of child protection work carried out between April 2018 and March 2019, including some record-breaking numbers.

In a year that saw a £600,000 funding boost from the Home Office, our Stop It Now! helpline took calls and emails from thousands of people. The money was granted to increase the number of operator hours on the helpline from January 2019 and in the following three months alone, we took calls from 1,624 people, a 24% increase on the same period in 2018.

Dr Michael Marett-Crosby, interim chief executive officer, said: “The Lucy Faithfull Foundation has a clear mission - to keep children safe. It is this task, and our vision of a world wherein young people can live free from the risk of sexual exploitation, that both inspires our supporters and motivates our trustees and staff.

“As well as the helpline, our training and public events continued to attract large numbers of people needing support to prevent child sexual abuse online and offline. In the past year, nearly 2,000 professionals attended training courses and more than 1,400 people attended public education sessions. And our public campaign to deter people from viewing indecent images of children continued this year, with more than 68,000 users visiting our online self-help resources.

“The Lucy Faithfull Foundation must grow so as to meet the challenges presented by new forms of online and offline risk,” said Marett-Crosby. “Amidst the hysteria that can smother the real issues around child exploitation, the Foundation will continue to develop and deliver practical solutions to meet new risks and old. We will continue to work until our vision and mission are fulfilled.”

Activities over the last year covered the whole of the UK. Stop It Now! Scotland ran a new deterrence campaign with Police Scotland to deter online grooming as well as their face-to-face work with individuals and groups. Stop It Now! Wales piloted a project to deliver one-to-one early intervention to at-risk groups and continued to develop policy in partnership with other groups.

Marett-Crosby added that plans for the coming year include making sure that all those who call our helpline – for themselves or for others – can find what they need within the range of services that the Foundation offers, and to look ahead to understand where the new threats to children might lie, online and offline.