Supporting survivors’ sexual wellbeing: Listening to what survivors say helps and what harms

Drawing on her Australian Honours research with 148 adult women who experienced child sexual exploitation and abuse, Nicolette Bell will explore what survivors said they needed to navigate the often complex sexual, relational and embodied consequences of abuse. Nicolette will share survivors' experiences of seeking support and what they found helpful and harmful, along with what made it easier or harder to move towards greater safety, agency, self-determination and wellbeing.

For practitioners working with women, these survivor accounts offer more than insight — they offer practice intelligence. The session will translate what survivors said into practical questions:

• How do we make sexuality safer to discuss?

• How do we distinguish supporting a survivor's sexual wellbeing from assuming that sexual activity is the goal?

• How can we strengthen capability, choice, and agency rather than inadvertently reproducing pressure or normative expectations?

• What conditions help survivors move from simply managing the consequences of abuse towards enhancing their capability for sexual wellbeing and human flourishing?

By listening more closely and responding more skillfully to survivors' experiences and needs, practitioners can support not only safety from harm, but the possibility of enhancing their capability for sexual wellbeing and human flourishing.

If you have any question for Nicolette Bell, please bring them along to the training or send them through to Courtney at project@whnsw.asn.au prior.

Nicolette Bell

Nicolette Bell is a criminologist, researcher, crisis counsellor and survivor-practitioner working at the intersection of sexual violence, recovery, sexual wellbeing and sexual justice. Her research examines the sexual wellbeing of people who have experienced child and adult sexual abuse, with a particular focus on what survivors need, to develop and exercise their capability for bodily autonomy, sexual self-determination, safe and respectful relationships, intimacy and human flourishing. Her Honours research, supervised by Professor Michael Salter, was one of the first Australian studies to examine survivors’ sexual wellbeing using the capabilities approach. The study explored the complex ways childhood sexual abuse, subsequent adversity, health challenges and “traumatised sexualities” can shape survivors’ sexual lives, while also identifying their agency, desires and capacity for sexual self-determination. For this work, she was awarded the UNSW University Medal and given a full PhD scholarship to extend her research on innovative sexual wellbeing approaches for survivors. 

Alongside her research, Nicolette has worked as a DFSV crisis counsellor and custodial case manager using person-centred, trauma-responsive practice. As someone with living expertise of sexual abuse, she works as an intentional peer supporter with other survivors seeking information about sexual wellbeing, intimacy and relationships. Her practice is grounded in the belief that lived experience and professional expertise can sit alongside one another without either being reduced to the other. Nicolette is particularly interested in how clinicians and services can support survivors not simply to manage the consequences of abuse, but to reclaim agency, safety, connection, choice and the possibility of sexual wellbeing.