University of South Australia

Associate Professor Lesley-Anne Ey is a national leader in the field of harmful sexual behaviour in education settings. She is highly regarded as an applied education researcher specialising in providing real-world solutions to prevent and respond to HSB. For the past decade Lesley’s research has explored children’s HSB in education settings with the aim to support teachers to recognise and respond effectively to HSB and inform teacher training and education curriculum. She has been instrumental in supporting both national and international education departments/organisations in developing policy, procedure, teacher training and education relative to child sexual abuse and harmful sexual behaviour. She sits on the National Clinical Reference Group for HSB as the expert in education. She also sits on the South Australian HSB governance group chaired by the Commissioner for children and young people.

Lesley’s research has attracted national and international competitive grants and is leading a national agenda to develop an education workforce to identify and respond effectively to HSB. Her research has illuminated the importance of education in primary and secondary prevention and has brought education to the table in this field. She pulls together multidisciplinary teams to generate the greatest impact to knowledge translation. Her research is relevant to a multi-agency audience to promote multidisciplinary interagency collaborative responses to HSB.
Lesley-anne is an advisor to Government, Independent, and Catholic Education Departments as well as the Daniel Morcombe Foundation Bright Futures Program and the Australian Biggest Child Safety Lesson. She authored the “Harmful sexual behaviours in young children and pre-teens: An educational issue”.