By Janhavi Gosavi

Content warning: This article discusses sexual violence. 

Robert* says when he was a child, he stumbled across objectionable imagery on his dad’s phone, who had engaged in physical and internet harm himself.

It sent Robert down a rabbit hole of finding more harmful sexual material and viewing it for a big chunk of high school, he says. 

Robert, who is using a pseudonym because he has legal name suppression, was arrested and charged with possessing objectionable material around age 19. 

He was discharged without a conviction and says his counsellor, his mum and a judge recommended he get in contact with WellStop. 

WellStop is a service that provides treatment and support for people who engage in harmful sexual behaviour. 

That can include physical harm, non-contact harm and internet-based harm, like engaging with child abuse material. 

Getting help made Robert realise his harmful behaviour was “addressable” and “not an unfixable evil” he had to sit with for the rest of his life.  

What does getting help for sexual harm look like? 

Mark King (Ngāti Pukenga ki Manaia) is the chief executive of WellStop and says “the first step is the hardest” when it comes to getting help.  

You can either be referred to WellStop by another health professional or can self-refer by calling the service on the phone, contacting them through their website or walking into one of their offices. 

King says your referral will be assessed by staff members who will look at all the different areas of your life, like your health, your family and financial situation. 

They will then combine that assessment with some psychometrics to come up with a treatment plan, which can run between six to 18 months and might involve meetings with a therapist and group sessions with other clients, he says. 

People of any age and gender can come to WellStop, whether they have done harmful sexual behaviour in the past, are presently doing it or have been thinking about it. 

A key part of treatment is forming a safety plan that acts as a map of what is and isn’t good for you. 

King says a hypothetical safety plan for an adult could identify that pubs and restaurants are risky areas for them, feeling isolated is triggering for them and joining a sports team would be helpful for their treatment. 

If a child has engaged in harmful sexual behaviour, their safety plan might include moving their computer from their bedroom to the living room and making sure their bedroom is in easy line of sight, he says. 

King says “confidentiality is a big thing for a lot of our clients” but it can be broken in certain circumstances where there is a risk of self-harm or harm to other people. 

Treatment is effective when there’s community and cultural support 

WellStop’s te reo Māori name is “Whiria Te Tangata” which means “weave the people together” and their logo features harakeke. 

King says a harakeke leaf on its own has limited strength but many leaves bound and woven together are the strongest they can be. 

“That is in reference to people who come to us when they're on their own and a significant amount of them become ostracised… [It] makes their journey and their ability to address their attitudes and behaviours a lot harder,” he says. 

“But if they come with a supportive crew behind them, a whānau, a family… Then together they are stronger.” 

While there is a stigma around telling people what you’ve done, King says most of WellStop’s clients have at least one person they identify as their support person who they are willing to share their journey with. 

King says WellStop also considers clients’ backgrounds when forming a treatment plan. 

The service has an ethnically diverse group of clinicians and therapists, and is connected to various iwi, Pasifika groups, the Red Cross, the rainbow community and religious groups, he says. 

With the client's consent, WellStop incorporates these different groups into the client’s treatment to support their hauora. 

“We're not naive enough to think we know everything,” King says.

Getting help on the phone

If you’re not ready to get face-to-face help yet, speaking with someone on the phone can be a good start. 

Safe to talk is the free and confidential national sexual harm helpline that connects people with specialist counsellors who are trained in trauma-informed care and speak many languages.  

The helpline supported 7300 people between June 2022 and June 2023, a small portion of who struggled with harmful sexual behaviours.  

Kirk Vette has worked in counselling for 20 years and is the service delivery manager for the telehealth services run by Whakarongorau Aotearoa, which includes Safe to talk. 

Vette says people who have caused sexual harm call the helpline to gather information, like figuring out what legal consequences they might face and what services they can turn to. 

“They don't say this, but people want to know that they're not alone in this, because if they're reaching out for help, it's quite a scary thing,” he says. 

“We want to acknowledge that it's taken quite a lot to make that phone call.”

Vette says counsellors will help these callers explore what they’re concerned about, understand their triggers, find out their needs and check if anyone is at risk of being harmed by them. 

“We remind them it’s confidential, so we don't need people's names and phone numbers,” he says. 

Counsellors can help connect callers with sexual harm prevention services in their area but Vette says many people prefer to note down contact details themselves and reach out when they are ready to. 

“We don't get many people contacting us who are not prepared to actually probably go and get face-to-face help themselves. They're at that point in their journey,” he says. 

‘It doesn’t define you’

By the time Robert voluntarily went to WellStop, he says he was quite separated from his previous harmful behaviour. 

Getting help enforced that separation and shed light on the underlying issues behind his harm, he says.  

Robert says he especially enjoyed talking to other people who related to him in group sessions, where they explored healthy masculinity, managing emotions and coping with problematic thoughts. 

“It's a lot easier to deal with the harmful behaviour, the issues around the harmful behaviour, with the sort of support network that’s here,” he says. 

“The primary thing is that it doesn't define you and it's something you can address.”

Correction 22 August: This story previously incorrectly referred to 'child abuse material' as 'child pornography'. 

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