In order to meet the needs of victims/survivors of childhood sexual assault, a better understanding of the causal effects of such abuse on mental health and other health and social problems is necessary, as well as a more complete knowledge of what factors act as buffers or exacerbate the impact of childhood sexual assault. There is an urgent need for evaluations of the therapeutic responses to the abuse for both children and adults. The aim must be to identify good practice, along with the difficulties services face and the consequent gaps in current levels of provision. Through a literature review of research and knowledge that does exist, what is found is that child sexual assault is presently defined to be any sexual activity between a child and an adult or older person, and that most sexual assault is perpetrated by someone who is known to a child. The correlation between childhood sexual assault and adverse psychological and social outcomes exists, there are minimal evaluative studies on the effectiveness of many therapeutic responses to childhood sexual assault, that the majority of victim/survivors encounter a range of obstacles to reporting victimization, and due to a lack in reporting, criminal justice responses are lacking in services.