'KNOCK NOC'-Non-offending carers experiences with social work in the aftermath of Internet-based child sexual abuse

Children of individuals under investigation for the possession of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in the UK are referred to social work to assess the risk of potential sexual harm. As a result of their co-parent's offences, the non-offending carer finds themselves thrown into the centre of child protection investigations and parenting assessments, which is underpinned by the new reality they must face: Their partner is no longer considered safe to be left alone with children. This study was undertaken over the course of two years as part of my participatory action research doctoral thesis in which I worked in collaboration with four women with lived experience of social work intervention. This article focuses specifically on four themes identified that spoke to the women's experiences with social workers. The themes are presented as messages that participants wished to communicate to child protection practitioners and were titled by the participants as follows: 'we are terrified', 'we are not the perpetrator', 'we are on our knees' and 'we want to work together to protect out children'. Following a summary of themes, this article goes on to discuss how social workers might better respond to families impacted by CSAM. This article seeks to discuss the findings generated from an empirical research project undertaken by the author in collaboration with four women with lived experiences as non-offending carers following the arrest of their respective partners for possessing CSAM. The research was conducted over the course of two years and sought to learn more about the women's lived experiences of social work intervention and what their self-identified support needs were in the aftermath of their partner's arrest. We used various creative research methods to tell participant stories including Photovoice, poetry, vignette and letter writing and we worked in collaboration to identify themes in the various data. This article specifically focuses on the themes generated from the written data (i.e. poetry, letters, and vignettes) as they were intended to communicate messages directly to social workers about their respective experiences.