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Beyond a story: survivor expertise must inform action to end childhood sexual violence
"Too often, we are invited into spaces to tell our stories, particularly when these are shocking enough to move a room. Our pain becomes the moment that moves the room's attention. But what happens after we tell it?"
There is a serious cost to being asked to relive trauma for impact. To be invited to speak, to be heard in the moment, but not trusted, included, or present when the real decisions are made. Over time, it becomes a familiar feeling, the sense that decisions are being made about us, without us. This cycle perpetuates the very insidious shame and silence that abuse thrives on.
This dynamic is mirrored in professional spaces, where disclosing yourself as a survivor can impact how others perceive your credibility, often risking being labeled as ‘too sensitive’, ‘too close to the issue’, or ‘too subjective.’
For a long time, I believed I couldn't disclose the abuse I experienced as a child and still be treated as a professional, because as a social worker and trauma therapist, there was an unspoken rule that you could be credible or you could be a survivor, but you couldn't be both.
This needs to change.
Survivors are more than their trauma
I know what it feels like to stand in a room, share the most painful parts of my life and then watch nothing change. What should I do when that happens? Do I return to my seat having shaped the conversation? Or do I return to the role of victim, while others continue making the decisions on behalf of survivors?
Sharing our stories should never be where our role ends. It should be where our influence begins.
The Northern Ireland Survivor Council was established because we were tired of seeing the same cycles repeat. Tired of hearing time and time again that victims and survivors felt frustrated after sharing their stories, that nothing changed.
"Storytelling matters. It breaks the silence, challenges stigma, and helps society confront difficult truths. But storytelling alone doesn't change systems."
Survivor councils can give victims and survivors a voice and influence, ensuring that their insights drive the changes that matter. Survivor councils allow lived experience to directly impact policy development and government delivery to keep children safe. They can disrupt the status quo by guiding the direction of policies that directly impact children, adolescents, and other victims and survivors.
We know from evidence and experience that the strongest responses to violence occur when three forms of knowledge come together – research and evidence, policy and professional expertise, and lived experience. Bridging these types of knowledge is critical to ending childhood sexual violence.
"Lived experience is insight into how systems truly function, what it takes to navigate them while living the aftermath of sexual abuse, and it reveals barriers that professionals may never see."
Survivors should lead the way
The Northern Ireland Survivor Council is asking you to be brave. Step beyond assumptions. Bring those who know the systems from the inside to the table, those who have lived it. Trust our insight, because the strongest solutions don’t come from reading or researching alone. They come from those who have felt the impact and navigated the system from the inside out.
Storytelling may open the door. But survivors must also be able to shape what comes next. Survivors should not just be heard. We are here to lead, change, and prevent harm.
