Seraphis · Children's Charity

A new approach to child protection.

Children always reach out for help: even in small, often invisible ways. We direct it towards authorities, building a world where every child in need of help can find it.

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90%

Abuse victims who report negative experiences trying to disclose

80%

Directly try to tell someone they're being abused. 80% attempt the most intimidating form of help-seeking. Help-seeking in general is effectively universal

Source

NSPCC, 2013: "No one noticed, no one heard".

Our Mission

"Every child will take a way out if it's shown to them"

The charity sector is struggling. Children's charities in particular are in a survival mode, holding back the floodgates of a never-ending stream of horrific cases. No organisation can handle this alone. The only answer is a fast-acting system where children can reach out before the cycles of grooming escalate into irreversible abuse.

We facilitate this by considering where children reach out, and using targeted interventions to align this towards authorities. A case study of our model is the now famous disclosure space, where the presence of a safe space where children are told they can talk about anything leads to a large increase in abuse disclosures. We would interpret this as increasing the chance that social help-seeking (directed at a friend) converts to formal help-seeking (directed at authorities). This makes help-seeking more likely to convert into full disclosure.

Only the child truly knows what is happening to them

Systems which rely on external monitoring or teacher training are valuable, but will always miss cases. The only totally reliable source is the child themselves.

Help-seeking is universal

Whether it's a note in a diary or a police interview, the need for help will always be externalised somewhere. If you can encourage that energy towards places it can be noticed, you can attack child abuse.

The police aren't the problem; the funnel is

Authorities aren't perfect, but blaming them for the rate of child abuse is misguided anger. In the developed world, the bottleneck is those in need never entering the system, not the system failing them. An estimated 90% of child abuse cases are never noticed.

Our Approach

Prevention, not reaction.

Our approach is the first whose end goal is a world where child abuse cannot happen, while the rest of the sector has a long-term goal to manage it more effectively.

The standard approach is a million-miracle model: a million small miracles have to take place to move a case perfectly through a system with a million steps. Our approach is the one-miracle model: that the child can reach out.

Nobody is capable of a million miracles. But the world, in trying to end child abuse, can achieve one.

Measurement

We use real research to map out help-seeking patterns. The result is called a Markov chain - jargon for a set of measurements like "10% chance telling a friend turns into telling a teacher" for different types of help-seeking.

Analysis

We then target interventions, find exactly what connections need to be strengthened or weakened to make help-seeking end up with authorities over time. Mathematicians call this reducing the spectral gap. Our method for it is called the Chambers algorithm.

Infrastructure

Building interventions to isolate and target those connections. The entire range of research-backed interventions are available to us. However, we focus on building Infrastructure to fit into a school's existing safeguarding system. Handling disclosures ourselves at scale is too centralised and introduces unnecessary risk. We work with authority, not outside of it.

Transparency

Open by design.

The public deserves to trust us, particularly as a young and novel organisation tackling such a sensitive issue. We go above and beyond other charities in transparency for this reason. Every document below is available because we choose to make it so.

Governing Document

Our constitution, which is the legal rulebook of Seraphis.

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Charity Commission Application

As we are in the process of receiving a charity number, you are welcome to see our full application.

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Mathematical Handbook

We've alluded to technical analysis and complexity. This is the detail, written at an undergraduate level.

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Please note: Seraphis is currently a charity in formation. Our Charity Commission application reference is 5288931. We are not yet a registered charity and do not use a registered charity number. This will be updated on approval.

Contact

Let's talk.

Seraphis has an all-contact policy. Any person or organisation who would like to contact us should feel welcome. At this time our preferred method of contact is email.

Email us contact@seraphis.org.uk

Response time

We aim to respond to all enquiries within two working days.

Press enquiries

Seraphis understands the value of the media and aims to be as helpful to journalists as possible. Please include your publication and deadline in your email, and we will assist you.