Perpetration – understanding the preconditions that need to be met for child sexual abuse to occur

Michael Huggett is currently employed by Sussex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust to work within SWIFT Specialist Family Service. He is a Registered Mental Health Nurse (RMN) with over eight years experience specialising in the treatment and recovery of women with complex and challenging mental health needs stemming from severe childhood trauma in the form of sexual abuse, violence and neglect. Through this work he has gained experiences and knowledge of the effects that childhood sexual abuse has in regard to the mental health of the survivor and, in instances where the service users are mothers, the impact that unresolved trauma has on the care of their children, for example through their choice of partners, their ability to put the needs of their child first and the impact of dissociative states. He regularly undertakes educational intervention work with non-abusing parents to increase there protective capacity in relation to sexual risk and teaches frontline social workers on the topics of sexual abuse within family contexts, working with survivors of sexual abuse and working with non-abusing partners. Michael completed a PhD entitled ‘How women diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder negotiate identity in relation to risk’ which focusses on how women in receipt of a Borderline Personality Disorder (known in Europe by the equivalent ‘Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder [borderline type])’ diagnosis negotiate their way through services in relation to their risk presentations and sense of identity. He has recently completed a diploma in Community and Psychotherapy with the Philadelphia Association.