‘Institutional responses’ are defined here as practices relating to child sexual abuse in institutions such as schools, churches and the media, including how they have responded to allegations made about sexual abuse within their own institutions or elsewhere; their treatment of victims and survivors and perpetrators; and their formulation of child protection and safeguarding policies. While the family as a social institution is outside the Inquiry’s scope, it does feature in relation to institutional failure and recurs as a core theme in a number of the discourses identified in the review, predominantly throughout the 1970s and 1980s.