Vol. 441 No. 8
137 Mr. Allen asked the Minister for Health the proposals, if any, he has to set up medical posts associated with child abuse units to deal with abusers in view of the fact that many abusers reabuse if they are not dealt with medically.
The primary purpose of child abuse units is to provide a service for the assessment of allegations of child sexual abuse and to arrange any necessary treatment for victims. Some of the units have begun to develop programmes aimed at abusers. Such programmes are not strictly medical, being run by multi-disciplinary teams of health professionals including psychiatrists, psychologist and social workers. They aim to help abusers examine their offending behaviour, their sexuality and victim experience. Research indicates that with adult abusers, therapy is most successful with incest offenders and with men who abuse girls.
