It has been argued previously that social work students need to understand what is known about those people who sexually offend and abuse in order to provide adequate
services to both victims/survivors and offenders/abusers. This article explores how engaging with a highly emotional topic can be undertaken in ways that make links with
other forms of knowledge within social work education programmes. It also presents techniques based on the experience of teaching and learning about sexual offending that have been useful, allowing students to think and talk about issues that are often obscured by emotion, rhetoric and claims for trut
