Fergus Finlay: The next steps the government must take to help abused children

Not a single organisation has said they want to put all of the wealth at their disposal into helping people who have been traumatised and abused. And they won’t.

The scoping inquiry has found that a quarter of all the allegations of abuse concerned children with a disability.

It’s really important to understand that there is no cure for trauma. Especially the trauma inflicted by one person on another as part of an act, or series of acts, of abuse. Money doesn’t cure it. Revenge doesn’t cure it. There is no pill or medical treatment that can cure it.

It is possible for people to learn how to live with trauma, to live fuller and happier lives despite it. And decent and fair financial compensation can help with that. But trauma is always there — sometimes locked in a box deep inside, sometimes covered over by emotional scar tissue. There is always the danger that it can break out and do damage — that’s why people coping with trauma in their lives talk about triggering events, the sometimes random things that bring it back to the surface.