Final Report
Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse
On 15 December 2017 the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse presented its Final Report to the Governor-General, detailing the culmination of a five year inquiry into institutional responses to child sexual abuse and related matters.
The Royal Commission's Final Report comprises 17 volumes and includes a total of 189 new recommendations, many of which are aimed at making institutions safer for children.
Together with the three final reports already released – Criminal Justice, Redress and Civil Litigation and Working with Children Checks – the Commissioners made a total of 409 recommendations.
The Final Report contains 3,955 de-identified narratives based on survivors' personal experiences of child sexual abuse told during private sessions and shared in written accounts.
The Final Report structure
Recommendations
A list of recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. This list includes recommendations from the previous Working With Children Checks (2015), Redress and civil litigation (2015) and Criminal justice (2017) reports.
Preface and Executive Summary
Includes a summary of the final report and a complete list of all recommendations.
Our inquiry
- Volume 1, Our inquiry introduces the Final Report and describes the establishment, scope and operations of the Royal Commission.
Understanding child sexual abuse in institutional contexts
- Volume 2, Nature and cause describes what the Royal Commission has learned about the nature and cause of child sexual abuse in institutional contexts. It includes one recommendation.
- Volume 3, Impacts explains the impacts of child sexual abuse in institutional contexts on survivors and often on their family members, friends, and entire communities.
- Volume 4, Identifying and disclosing child sexual abuse describes what the Commissioners learned about survivors’ experiences of disclosing child sexual abuse.
- Volume 5, Private sessions examines survivors' experiences of child sexual abuse as told to Commissioners during private sessions.
Child safe institutions
- Volume 6, Making institutions child safe describes the need for a national child sexual abuse prevention strategy and proposes child safe standards, including how they should be implemented. It includes 24 recommendations.
- Volume 7, Improving institutional responding and reporting looks at institutions' responses to complaints of child sexual abuse and how they report these matters to external government authorities. It includes 12 recommendations.
- Volume 8, Recordkeeping and information sharing examines the records, recordkeeping and information sharing of institutions that care for or provide services to children. It includes 23 recommendations.
Support and treatment
- Volume 9, Advocacy, support and therapeutic treatment services looks at what the Commissioners learned about survivors' needs in terms of advocacy, support and treatment and offers recommendations for improving service systems to better respond to survivors' needs. It includes nine recommendations.
- Volume 10, Children with harmful sexual behaviours examines what the Commissioners learned about institutional responses to children with harmful sexual behaviours. It includes seven recommendations.
Particular institutions
- Volume 11, Historical residential institutions describes what the Commissioners learned about survivors' experiences of, and institutional responses to, child sexual abuse in residential institutions pre-1990.
- Volume 12, Contemporary out-of-home care examines institutional responses to child sexual abuse in contemporary out-of-home care. It includes 22 recommendations.
- Volume 13, Schools describes institutional responses to child sexual abuse in schools. It includes eight recommendations.
- Volume 14, Sport, recreation, arts, culture, community and hobby groups looks at what the Commissioners learned about institutional responses to child sexual abuse in sport and recreation contexts. It includes four recommendations.
- Volume 15, Contemporary detention environments reviews what the Commissioners learned about institutional responses to child sexual abuse in contemporary detention environments. It includes 15 recommendations.
- Volume 16, Religious institutions examines institutional responses to child sexual abuse in religious institutions. It includes 58 recommendations.
Beyond the Royal Commission
- Volume 17, Beyond the Royal Commission describes the impact and legacy of the Royal Commission and discusses monitoring and reporting on the implementation of our recommendations. It includes six recommendations.