Dr Caoilte Ó Ciardha awarded a grant from End Violence's Tech Coalition Safe Online Research Fund

The Centre of Research and Education in Forensic Psychology at the University of Kent has been awarded a grant from End Violence's Tech Coalition Safe Online Research Fund. The project, 'Understanding and improving help-seeking by people at risk of perpetrating online child sexual exploitation and abuse', will explore interventions that aim to reach those people who are at risk of offending before they offend.

Led by Dr Caoilte Ó Ciardha, an Associate Member of iCSS, the project will explore the impact of interventions such as online messaging, that aim to deter offenders from perpetuating online child sexual abuse. Dr Ó Ciardha foresees this research having a direct impact on the tech industry by providing an evidence base for what works to divert people at risk of online sexual abuse toward obtaining professional help. The aim of the research is not just to stop people from accessing child exploitation material once, on a given platform, but also to try to link that person to resources that may prevent them from ever accessing this kind of material.

Dr Ó Ciardha says, 'If we can increase—even slightly—the number of people seeking help after seeing these types of messages, this may translate into thousands of people seeking help, and potentially avoiding offending.'

The full article is available to read here:
https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/psychology/2021/09/29/dr-caoilte-o-ciardha-has-been-awarded-a-grant-from-end-violences-tech-coalition-safe-online-research-fund/