About this session

When professionals from different agencies work together, friction is not always a sign that individuals are unwilling to cooperate. It may reflect different legal duties, professional cultures, decision-making authority, resources, and definitions of what good practice looks like.

This interactive masterclass moves beyond interpersonal team-building to examine the structures and leadership behaviours that allow multidisciplinary work to function well. It invites participants to examine how people can share the same basic idea of the purpose of what they are doing, and still hold very different ideas about what success looks like. It further invites participants to explore how difficulties in frontline case coordination can reveal misalignment in governance, mandates, or system design.

The masterclass will then examine the scaffolding that sustains trust: clear agreements, meaningful governance, interdependent tasks, dedicated staffing, sufficient funding, protected collaborative time, and processes for review. In small groups, participants will diagnose a current systemic barrier, and design one solution they could test at home, such as an interagency charter, improved onboarding, alignment training, meeting redesign, a shared measure, or a process for mid-course review.

This masterclass is developed with the idea that participants could repeat the exercises with their Barnahus colleagues in their own countries. It therefore supports participant’s own understanding of supporting multidisciplinary interagency teamwork on the individual and team levels.

About this session

This session explores how participation can shape individual support, service improvement, evaluation, and the future direction of Barnahus. Participation is more than asking children for feedback. It requires safe and accessible ways for children to express their views, adults with the responsibility and authority to listen, and visible evidence that children's perspectives influence decisions.

The University of Edinburgh and the University of Bedfordshire will present findings from the child outcomes review and related consultations, establishing an evidence base for understanding what children identify as quality in Barnahus. The presentation will examine what children say about multidisciplinary support, access to information, relationships with professionals, and receiving help that responds to their individual needs. It will highlight where current services reflect these priorities and where children’s experiences reveal gaps between professional intentions and practice.

Children First will present action research led by young researchers in Scotland, exploring children’s experiences of investigative interviews, recovery support, and the justice system. Young researchers’ findings will be featured, covering preparation, welcoming and private spaces, discreet technology, trusted relationships, meaningful choices, and continued support. The presentation will demonstrate how Changemakers turned children’s knowledge into visible changes in services and professional practice.

Bluestar will present an organisational approach to making lived-experience leadership an ongoing and properly resourced part of service development rather than a one-off consultation. Using the Quilt framework, the presentation will explore how organisations can share power, define meaningful roles, provide appropriate support and remuneration, and create accountability for acting on what lived-experience leaders contribute. It will consider the conditions needed for this work to be safe, equitable, influential, and sustained over time.

Participants will be invited to consider not only how children’s views are gathered, but who holds the authority to act on them, how that influence is made visible, and what resources are required for participation to be safe, meaningful, and enduring.

About this session

Medical evaluation has value far beyond the likelihood of finding forensic evidence. It can identify untreated health needs, offer reassurance, answer questions, contribute to the multidisciplinary understanding of the child, and support recovery. Yet access remains uneven, and services may struggle with workforce confidence, referral criteria, timing, and the relationship between forensic and broader health assessment.

The Lighthouse in London will address the barriers that prevent children from receiving a physical health assessment and challenge the assumption that an examination is worthwhile only when physical findings are expected. Their practice examples will show how medical assessment can contribute to a holistic plan and how play and preparation can increase the child's understanding, choice, and sense of control.

An expert from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kinderschutz in der Medizin and DRK Kliniken Berlin will introduce the German Medical Child Protection Guideline, which is currently under revision, and explain how it supports medical professionals in assessing and responding to suspected child abuse. The presentation will focus particularly on confidential forensic evidence preservation when the police are not yet involved, including the legal and practical considerations that apply when the patient is a child. It will explore how careful medical assessment, documentation, and evidence preservation can safeguard the child’s immediate health and wellbeing while keeping open the possibility that the evidence may later support an investigation.

Børnehus Sjælland will present Denmark's journey from cross-sector collaboration, practice development, pilot implementation leading up to the national rollout of its systematic forensic medical screening programme. The presentation will show how evidence, professional development, and service organisation were translated into wider provision.

Drawing on The Lighthouse’s experience, participants will take part in a facilitated brainstorm to identify practical ways of developing more accessible, child-centred, and holistic medical-evaluation pathways within their own Barnahus.

About this session

Quality is not secured by adopting standards alone. It depends on whether partners can translate shared principles into everyday practice, measure performance, examine what is working, and act on what they learn. This session brings together experience from cross-country quality development, service auditing, and the wider work to support a coherent European approach to evaluation.

Representatives of the CBSS-supported collaboration between Germany, Finland, and Sweden will describe how they translated the Barnahus Quality Standards into indicators and a practical process for reviewing services across three national settings. They will share what the audit revealed, how participating services experienced the process, and how their feedback influenced the developing approach. The presentation will examine how differences between national systems affected the review process, as well as the conditions that enabled constructive peer learning and honest reflection on practice.

The Lighthouse will present the development of its Children’s Experience of the Criminal Justice System Questionnaire, showing how children and young people helped to shape a tool for understanding their experiences of justice following sexual abuse. Young people examined the questionnaire’s relevance, accessibility, and acceptability, and their feedback directly influenced its wording, content, and format. The tool has been piloted in the service, and they will share the initial findings.

The Tusla Child and Family Agency, Ireland, will present the findings of the 2026 independent internal audit of Barnahus Ireland, explaining how the audit examined governance, monitoring, risk management, and the arrangements for implementing recommendations during the national expansion of Barnahus. The audit recognised established multi-agency governance, action planning, performance reporting, and reviews, while also identifying weaknesses in how strategic actions and recommendations were planned, tracked, and completed.

This session will present lessons for countries seeking to expand Barnahus while maintaining transparency, accountability, and consistent implementation, and help participants to reflect on how similar indicators and review processes might work in their own settings.

About this session

The presence of many disciplines does not automatically create an integrated response. This session will explore what turns multidisciplinary presence into genuinely coordinated practice.

The Children’s House in Cyprus will use practical examples from its everyday work to examine “Who holds the whole picture?”. The presentation will show how the service manages information-sharing, role boundaries, differing professional priorities, and transitions between interventions while seeking to maintain continuity from the child’s perspective. It will explore the difference between professionals working alongside one another and operating as an integrated team, including how unclear ownership or gaps between agencies can affect children and families.

Western Australia's Multi-Agency Investigation and Support Team will present their long-standing partnership between Parkerville Children and Youth Care and the Western Australian Police Force. Their case-based contribution will examine points where systems may add harm after disclosure and how investigative and therapeutic responsibilities can remain distinct while being deliberately aligned from referral and interview preparation through crisis support, justice processes, and longer-term care.

The Lighthouse in London will present its holistic multidisciplinary assessment, in which paediatricians, psychologists, social workers, and advocates work together following the investigative interview to develop a shared understanding of the child’s physical health, mental health, safeguarding, and justice-related needs. The contribution will examine the triage, information-sharing, joint clinical interviewing, and professional relationships needed to organise a one-stop assessment and produce a coordinated care and support plan without requiring the child to repeat their story unnecessarily.

This session will support participants to gain inspiration on how to improve their own collaboration to ensure children and families don't have to navigate the gaps between services.

About this session

Disclosure is not a single moment, and it does not always lead directly to a forensic interview. Some children disclose gradually, partially, or indirectly; some are not ready to speak to the police; and some children whose experiences may warrant support never reach a specialist Barnahus service. This session examines the pathway into Barnahus, the conditions that support a child to communicate, and what a child-centred response looks like whether or not a formal disclosure is made.

HUS Helsinki University Hospital will explore how Barnahus and related services can create safer opportunities to identify adverse experiences. It will present findings from a study of 5,607 adolescents aged 15 to 16 which compared lifetime victimisation, psychosocial well-being, and willingness to report victimisation. Adolescents with an immigrant background reported more victimisation, particularly property crime, hate crime, physical abuse, and sexual abuse. Their responses indicated they were more likely to withhold certain experiences even in an anonymous survey.

INTERPOL’s Crimes Against Children Unit will explain how victim-centred investigative practice can identify and safeguard children when sexual abuse is uncovered through digital evidence. The contribution will examine cooperation between specialist units and the integration of safeguarding into investigations to reduce secondary trauma. It will also consider how international investigative work connects with the local Barnahus response when an identified child requires protection, assessment, and support.

Finnish research into suspected violence within families shows how the initial assessment of seriousness can shape the response a child receives. Police and child welfare processes are most readily coordinated in suspected aggravated assaults, while children in apparently less severe cases are more likely to be interviewed first by child welfare services and later by the police, requiring them to recount their experiences repeatedly. Because the full seriousness of a case may only become apparent over time, the contribution examines how agencies can protect the child’s account, coordinate their responsibilities, and ensure that children receive support even when the evidence remains unclear or criminal proceedings do not follow.

CYP Havens will contribute experience of engaging and safeguarding adolescents who are not ready to report to the police, including why a young person may choose not to disclose, what might make disclosure safer, and how support can continue without making cooperation with an investigation the price of receiving help.

Together, these perspectives will trace the trajectory of access to Barnahus, support for formal disclosure, and care when disclosure does not happen or does not happen yet.

About this session

Children and families may need very different forms of support at different points in their journey. Immediate crisis support, practical help, support for parents and caregivers, and specialist therapeutic interventions all have a place, but children’s needs and readiness will vary. Recovery can involve regaining safety, control, and a fuller everyday life, as well as relief from symptoms. This session considers how Barnahus can offer a range of support that responds to children’s circumstances and preferences, and remains available as their needs change.

Harewood Consultancy and the Universities of Bedfordshire and Edinburgh will draw on Making Sense of Recovery, the Continuum of Recovery work, and children’s perspectives to explore what recovery means and what a recovery offer should include. They will examine how different understandings of recovery shape professional responsibilities and the help children receive. The discussion will consider how screening and assessment inform decisions about support, including how services identify priorities when capacity is limited. Their presentation will also explore how participation, lived experience, and advocacy can contribute to recovery. This includes opportunities for children to influence the systems around them, connect with others, and regain a sense of control, alongside practical help to navigate services and claim their rights.

Barnahus Stockholm will present how its counsellors support the safety person who follows the child to Barnahus. They will also present their method of arranging home visits by child protection the same day as the child is interviewed in Barnahus. The presentation will demonstrate when this support is offered, how children’s and carers’ needs shape the response, and how the home visit informs referrals and follow up.

KST-Traumahilfe and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin will bring a practitioner’s perspective on choosing therapeutic support, including trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy (TF-CBT) and eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR). The contribution will explain how timing, readiness, and preparation influence therapeutic decisions, and what support can be offered when a child is not ready for a particular intervention.

Join this session to reflect on the full spectrum of support is currently offered by your own Barnahus, and to discuss with discuss with practitioners how children’s needs and choices can guide when and how to offer such support.

About this session

Scaling Barnahus is not simply a matter of opening more locations. Growth generates decisions about shared standards, local adaptation, governance, funding, workforce, evidence, and whose voice shapes the system.

This session brings together three different routes to expansion: network-led, advocacy-led, and policy-led routes to scale. It will support participants to examine how scaling can strengthen rather than dilute quality and impact.

Save the Children Spain will reflect on ten years of work in Spain to move Barnahus from an unfamiliar concept to expanding public policy. She will identify practical steps involving evidence, alliances, government and judicial engagement, international cooperation, implementation support, scaling, and demonstration of impact, including lessons from approaches that did not work as intended.

NHS England and The Lighthouse will add experience of changing the national policy narrative and developing a service specification with victims, survivors, and stakeholder groups.

The Empowering Children Foundation will present how Poland's network of 13 locations, including both non-governmental and public providers, co-designed a shared strategy. Their contribution will cover a stakeholder survey, mapping of gaps, strategic workshops, and a decision-making matrix that clarifies who is consulted, informed, responsible for coordination, and authorised to decide across key areas of network life.

Together, these experiences will offer participants a view into building a shared direction and political commitment, translating ambition into governance and service specifications, and protecting quality, accountability, and participation as provision grows.

About this session

Children and adolescents who display harmful sexual behaviour need responses that protect other children while recognising their own rights, developmental needs, and capacity for change. Services must navigate safeguarding, family relationships, legal processes, professional responsibilities, and the risk that young people fall between child protection, therapeutic, and juvenile justice systems.

PrevenSI and Barnahus Terrassa in Spain will present a pilot therapeutic intervention for young people aged 14 to 18 who have engaged in sexually harmful behaviour. The project responds to a gap identified through the Terrassa Barnahus and the PrevenSI helpline, particularly where behaviour is not reported or does not lead to a juvenile justice response. The contribution will explain how the intervention was designed, why early support matters, what has been learned from the pilot, and how families are helped to understand the situation, support change, and manage their own emotional needs.

Tusla and the National Interagency Prevention Programme in Ireland will add the specific challenge of harmful sexual behaviour between siblings. Its contribution will describe work to establish a consistent operating procedure when one child is receiving a specialist harmful-sexual-behaviour intervention and another is attending Barnahus, including questions of physical and therapeutic space, information sharing, data protection, separation, and safeguarding across agencies.

Together, these contributions will help participants consider how to balance the safety and needs of all children involved with developmentally appropriate support for the child who has displayed harmful sexual behaviour.

About this session

All children have the right to be heard and understood, regardless of the language they use. Providing an interpreter, however, does not by itself ensure equal participation. Every question and response passes through another person, changing the relationship between the child and interviewer and introducing questions about trust, rapport, professional roles, linguistic accuracy, and who is responsible for ensuring that communication is appropriate to the child’s age and needs. These questions become particularly important when children are already navigating an unfamiliar justice system, displacement, disability, or other communication barriers.

KU Leuven will draw on the CO-Minor-IN/QUEST and ChiLLS research programmes, which examined interpreter-mediated communication with children through research involving children, interpreters, investigative interviewers, psychologists, child-support professionals, and other legal actors. The presentation will focus on what children and young people themselves revealed about these encounters, including findings that children may look towards, and place considerable trust in, the interpreter. It will examine what this means for the relationship between the child, interviewer, and interpreter, and challenge assumptions that the interpreter can operate as an invisible or purely technical presence.

The presentation will reflect on adapting language to the child, when an interpreter should intervene or seek clarification, and how these decisions affect professional boundaries, the child’s participation, and the quality of the account. It will also present learning from interprofessional training involving interpreters, specialist child interviewers, psychologists, and child-support professionals. This work has used briefing, debriefing, recorded role plays, and joint analysis to make differing professional expectations visible and develop a shared approach to interpreter-mediated interviews.

Participants will gain an evidence-based understanding of how interpretation can affect both children’s participation and the quality of investigative interviews. They will be invited to consider what the findings reveal about interpreter selection, preparation, role clarity, specialist training, and protocols within their own systems.

About this session

Children affected by war may arrive at Barnahus with experiences shaped by violence, displacement, separation, bereavement, disrupted services, or continuing uncertainty. Professionals may have to adapt assessment, communication, safeguarding, family support, and coordination while remaining attentive to the individual child’s evolving needs.

In this mini workshop, colleagues from Ukraine will guide participants through the journey of a child affected by war. The workshop will walk through a fictitious case, inviting participants to consider what changes when a child's experience of violence is connected to armed conflict, and what should remain constant in a child-centred, multidisciplinary response.

The session will examine questions such as how professionals establish safety and trust; how displacement, family separation, language, and uncertainty may affect engagement; how information is gathered without creating unnecessary repetition; and how Barnahus can coordinate protection, health, psychological support, and justice-related needs.

About this session

The physical environment of a Barnahus is not simply a backdrop to practice. Layout, sound, light, privacy, accessibility and movement through a building can shape whether children and families feel safe, heard and supported. They can also influence how effectively professionals work together.

This session explores the development and early operation of the North Strathclyde Bairns Hoose through three complementary perspectives: design, research and practice.

Mary Glasgow, Chief Executive of Children First, will reflect on the co-design of North Strathclyde Bairns' Hoose with Lee Boyd Designers + Architects. Drawing on plans, photographs and materials from the design process, she will examine how children's views, service values and operational requirements were translated into decisions about layout, privacy, sensory experience, accessibility and multidisciplinary working. She will also share key lessons and challenges for those planning new Barnahus facilities or adapting existing premises.

Dr Eilidh Lamb and Dr Mary Mitchell from the University of Edinburgh will present findings from Creating Spaces for Children to Feel Seen and Heard: The Design and Use of Space in the North Strathclyde Bairns' Hoose. Drawing on interviews with children, families, practitioners and senior leaders, they will explore how the building supports safety, participation, privacy and collaboration, while highlighting tensions between design intentions and how spaces are used in practice.

Leeann Hart, Bairns' Hoose Co-ordinator, will share insights from children and young people about what makes a space feel welcoming, safe and suitable for difficult conversations. She will reflect on how environments can support comfort, transitions between activities and professional collaboration, while responding to the diverse needs of children and services.

Together, these perspectives will help participants consider how to involve children meaningfully in the development of a Barnahus, translate children's priorities into practical design decisions, and evaluate whether completed environments are delivering the experiences they were intended to create.