Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is a significant issue associated with a range of harms to victims who experience both child sexual abuse and re-victimisation with the ongoing viewing and distribution of such material. There has been increasing interest in methods that disrupt the viewing, production and distribution of CSAM, focusing on deterring motivated individuals already engaging in these behaviours. However, there is increasing recognition of the need for interventions that attempt to disrupt emerging patterns of risky online behaviours that may escalate to CSAM offending, targeted at those who may be worried about their sexual thoughts or behaviour towards children and/or have started to attempt to access CSAM online. Examples of such initiatives available overseas include Stop It Now! in the UK, the Netherlands and the US, and Prevention Project Dunkelfeld in Germany.

In this paper, we first describe the range and type of prevention initiatives for CSAM offending across a wide range of organisations in Canada, Europe, New Zealand, the UK and the US. Secondly, we describe the evidence on the implementation and effectiveness available on these initiatives for preventing CSAM offending, as well as other measures of success. Information was drawn from website searches, a literature review and an international project advisory group. Findings can help inform the development and implementation of future prevention strategies.