By  Dulcie Faure-Walker, DForenPsy., & Kieran McCartan, Ph.D.  

The annual NOTA international conference took place in Belfast, Northern Ireland, last week.  This was the first time that the NOTA annual conference had been in Belfast since 2019, our first post-covid visit. There were over 300 attendees across two days, with four keynote sessions and 38 parallel breakout sessions. For the first time the NOTA conference moved from three to two days and the organization and structure of the days took a different format.  For this blog post, we talk through the highlights of a successful, engaging, and thought-provoking conference. 

The conference kicked off on Thursday morning with a welcome to Belfast and Northern Ireland by Lady Chief Justice Siobhan Keegan where she discussed her journey to become chief justice and the importance of understanding the causes of sexual and interpersonal abuse for all, especially judges, in the criminal justice system. The chair for the day was Miriam O’Callaghan, an RTÉ journalist and TV news presenter based in the Republic of Ireland, who discussed the importance of having an informed press when reporting on sensitive, challenging and controversial issues. Which lead directly into her chairing of the first keynote which was a debate on whether the causes of paedophilia are nature or nature. The debate was started by Dr James Cantor who argued for the nature side stating that you cannot wholly explain paedophilia, not necessarily child sexual abuse in general, in social and contextual factors and highlighted research on mental health, psychology, biology and brain structure as well as function. This position was countered by Professor Nick Blagden who argued the need top recognize the important of the social element. Across the debate and questions that followed the two speakers came to the consensus that what is important is to look at the individual and what the motivating factors are for them and that there is not a one size fits all explanation. Which lead Miriam to agree and to state that we need to do a better job at discussing these complex issues in educating individuals, communities and society. After the first keynote the conference broke into two sets of parallel sessions and lunch before returning at the end of the day for a roundtable debate on Extremism & Online Child Sexual Abuse. This session was chaired by Iain Drennan, head of We Protect Global Alliance, who laid out the current context of online social hams, the role of social media and the intersection between extremism, toxic masculinity and violence against women and children. The other members of the panel Professor Ethel Quayle, University of Edinburgh, Robert Richardson, National Crime Agency, & Marcella Leonard MBE, private therapist and consultant, discussed Iain’s remarks and questions from their research, policy and practice experience. This made for an interesting debate, which highlighted the complexity of the online world and the challenges that we have in understanding the motivations of people using and viewing sexual abuse material and how it ties to extremist, not in terms of political, social and physical violence. 

On Friday the conference was opened by Dr Stephanie O’Keeffe, the CEO of Cuan the Domestic, Sexual and Gender Based Violence (DSGBV) Agency in the Republic of Ireland, who stated that the need for a better understanding of the links between child abuse, interpersonal violence and violence within the home was more important than ever. Which lead into the first keynote by Prof. Parveen Ali who discussed her new book, with Dr Michaela Rogers, on the overlaps between sexual offending and domestic violence. The presentation reinforced the importance of understanding sexual abuse in the family context and need for a multi-agency, multi-disciplinary approach in responding to and preventing it. Additionally, as with Stepanie, Parveen argued that you need and informed and educated workforce to effectively intervene. After the first keynote the conference broke into two sets of parallel sessions and lunch before returning at the end of the day for the final keynote of the conference on place based approaches to preventing sexual abuse in children and young people (CYP) by Dr. Nadine McKillop who talked about research, policy and practice in Australia and why talking a place based approach is the most effective way for protecting CYP from sexual harm, but asl in upskilling communities around the issue, which was followed by Professor Carlene Firmin who discussed the role of contextual safeguarding in preventing sexual harm across the UK. The two presentations dovetailed well together and reinforced the role of the community in helping to prevent and respond to sexual harm in CYP. Interesting the final keynote reinforced the messages of the opening one, that you need to focus on the individual at risk of committing or who has committed sexual harm and work with them in their context in an individualized and multi-systemic way. 

Across Thursday and Friday, we had 38 breakout sessions covering topics as broad as research and treatment on sibling sexual abuse, harmful sexual behavior in CYP, risk assessment, sexual abuse prevention, masculinity and online harm, treatment, desistence, and updates from HMPPS on current policy as well as practice. This year, like last year, the conference had a special online edition of the Journal of Sexual Aggression curated by Dr. Nadine McKillop; readers are invited to go to the journal website and twitter account for more information. 

In closing, the conference was a great success and the two-day format worked, with lots of postive feedback. It was a great opportunity to reconnect and reengage with colleagues as well as learn about innovative research, policy, and practice. The next NOTA conference will be in Newcastle, England, in mid-May 2026, we hope to see you there!