Room 520-C | Sexuality and Violence Tuesday, July 12, 2005 Time: 8:30 AM-10:30 AM |
Preventing Child Sexual Abuse: Promoting Sexual Health.
Klein, Alisa*,1, 1 Stop It Now!, Haydenville, MA, USA
ABSTRACT- It is underestimated that an average of over 500,000 children are sexually abused each year in the USA. The negative public health impacts of child sexual abuse (CSA) are well-documented -- among them are harmful drug use, eating and sleep disorders, chronic mental and physical illness, abusive sexual and intimate relationships, and increased risk for poverty and imprisonment. Yet, despite its nature as a preventable public health concern using, in part, the tools of healthy sexuality education for children and adults, traditionally, our society has responded to CSA using only the tools of the criminal justice, victim advocacy and child protection systems, all of which intervene only after the abuse has been perpetrated, and none of which attend to the promotion of sexual health. The workshop presenter, public policy director for Stop It Now!, a public health organization that utilizes research, public education, and policy advocacy approaches to ending child sexual abuse, will explain CSA as an issue that demands primary prevention initiatives, including healthy sexuality education and training, how to talk about sex and sexual harm, and how to intervene in situations of risk for sexual abuse. She will explain basic concepts of public health prevention, including the identified levels of, and approaches to universal, indicated and selective prevention; and perpetration prevention. The presenter will demonstrate how public health must be employed as an essential discipline in preventing CSA -- one that can attend to "front end" prevention before the trauma of child sexual abuse is inflicted. Workshop participants will learn from over twenty studies about how CSA causes negative (public) health outcomes. They will understand how the criminal justice, victim advocacy, and child protective systems are unable to reach the vast majority of child sexual abusers because so few cases of CSA are ever reported. Participants will understand the importance of involving people who have sexually abused or who are at risk to abuse, victims and survivors, family members of both, and communities in preventing sexual abuse. Geared to researchers, clinicians and other practitioners who would like to understand more about the role that healthy sexuality can play in preventing child sexual abuse before it is perpetrated, this workshop will offer an overview of concrete, demonstrated, and proven public health and healthy sexuality approaches that can be used in preventing CSA. The presenter will invite questions and conduct an open discussion about this often-neglected and painful topic.
Key words: violence, health, abuse, healing, prevention