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Harmful sexual behaviour (HSB) training

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Price

£35

Format
Online
Duration

3 hours

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Call us:0116 234 7246
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Understanding, responding to and preventing HSB

Gain the knowledge you need to confidently identify and manage incidences of harmful or problematic sexualised behaviour.

This online course focuses on seeing, understanding, responding to and preventing harmful sexual behaviour (HSB). Designed for anyone working or volunteering with children, you’ll learn from experts through a range of teaching pages, scenarios and films.

What will I learn?

This elearning course covers:

  • the definition of HSB and the range of behaviours the term covers, including problematic sexualised behaviour, online HSB and sibling sexual abuse
  • recognising possible contributing factors that lead to harmful behaviour
  • how to use tools, including the NSPCC Hackett Continuum, to identify and respond to HSB
  • managing your personal feelings when responding to incidents of HSB
  • how to record and report incidents effectively
  • developing and reviewing safety plans.

By the end of the course you will feel more confident in recognising and responding to HSB.

Benefits of this course

  • Developed by subject matter experts specialising in preventing harmful sexual behaviour.
  • Suitable for learners in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
  • Includes insight from Childline counselling sessions and NSPCC Helpline contacts.
  • Complete at your own pace and in your own time.
  • Learn through teaching pages, film clips and reflective activities.
  • Personalised downloadable certificate of achievement.
  • Further resources and information are signposted when you complete the course.
  • Income generated from the sale of our training courses is reinvested into the NSPCC to help protect children.
98%
of our customers would recommend NSPCC training
* We received 35,700 evaluation forms from people who had taken our elearning courses between 1st April 2025 - 31st March 2026. 35,019 (98.1%) said they would recommend the course they had taken.

This course is for anyone working or volunteering with children and young people, including those who are required to manage safeguarding and child protection issues.

This includes teachers and other professionals working in schools and education settings, and healthcare workers as well as staff in other sectors.

The elearning course provides a complete overview of HSB, and how to recognise and respond to incidents.

In-person training for teams

We also offer an in-depth two-day training course for teams who may come into contact with children affected by or displaying HSB, including those working in children’s services and multi-agency partnerships.

> See advanced HSB training course for teams

At the NSPCC, we work to keep children and young people safe from abuse and neglect every day.

As experts in safeguarding and child protection, we understand the issues organisations and people working with children can face. That’s why professionals trust us to provide the support, training and resources they need to help protect the children and young people they work with.

Our highly-rated training courses are developed by experts. We work with a number of organisations, experienced consultants and subject matter experts in a range of sectors to develop courses that are clear, easy-to-use, up-to-date and in line with the latest statutory guidance, and tailored to your needs.

And as a charity, income generated from the sale of our training courses is reinvested back into the NSPCC to help protect children.

This elearning course is CPD certified by the CPD Certification Service. This means you can be confident that the training meets the highest standards.

Continuing professional development, or CPD for short, helps professionals keep their skills and knowledge up to date. It demonstrates your commitment to safeguarding children and upholding the standards of your profession.

Some professional associations have mandatory CPD or safeguarding training requirements for their members, but all professionals will benefit from investing time in their CPD. And taking an online CPD course means you can train at your own pace, wherever suits you.

Our online courses will work in most browsers, though we recommend that you use Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge or Safari (not Firefox). You will need to make sure your browser is up to date for the course to run.

This course can be taken on PCs and Macs, as well as iPads or other tablet devices. Please note, we are unable to provide full technical support for tablet users. We do not support other mobile devices.

Having trouble with the course?

Try:

  • clearing your cache
  • accepting our cookies (essential cookies are required for the purposes of undertaking our elearning)
  • turning off private browsing
  • permitting access to videos on Vimeo
  • setting the following web domain to ‘trusted’: https://mylearning.nspcc.org.uk

Call us on 0116 234 7246 or email learning@nspcc.org.uk if you have any questions.

Buy our online course

Buy the elearning course Understanding, responding to and preventing harmful sexual behaviour

QuantityPrice per person
1-9£35.00
10-49£31.50
50-99£29.75
100-999£28.00
Buy now

Buying for your organisation? If you would like to host this course on your learning management system call us on 0116 234 7246 or email learning@nspcc.org.uk.

I enjoyed the course and feel that it will help me in my job. It clarified lots of grey areas in my understanding and I will now feel more confident if I have to deal with incidents of sexualised behaviour.



Elearning course participant