Preventing Child Sexual Abuse: Body Safety Training for Young Children in Turkey

Abstract

The "Body Safety Training Program" is an education program aimed at ensuring children are informed about their body and acquire self-protection skills. In this study, a total of 83 preschoolers were divided into experimental and control groups; based on a power analysis, 40 children comprised the experimental group, while 43 children comprised the control group. The "Body Safety Training Programme" was translated into Turkish and content validity was determined regarding the language and cultural appropriateness. The "What If Situations Test" (WIST) was administered to both groups before and after the training. Mann-Whitney U Test, Kruskal-Wallis Variance Analysis, and the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test were used to compare between the groups and the Spearman correlation analysis was used to determine the strength of the relationship between the dependent and independent variable. The differences between the pretest and posttest scores for the subscales (appropriate recognition, inappropriate recognition, say, do, tell, and reporting skills), and the personal safety questionnaire (PSQ) score means for the children in the experimental group were found to be statistically significant (p < .001). The posttest-pretest difference score means of the experimental group children for WIST saying, doing, telling and reporting, total skills, and PSQ were found to be statistically significant as compared to that of the control group (p < .05). The "Body Safety Training programme" is effective in increasing the child sexual abuse prevention and self-protection skills in Turkish young children.

Effective Components of School-Based Prevention Programs for Child Abuse: A Meta-Analytic Review

“…Finally, for self-protection skills, significantly smaller effect sizes were found for school programs focusing on identifying a trusted person for a child. This finding was unexpected as school-based programs for the prevention of child abuse often include identifying adults who can be trusted and encourage children to tell these trusted adults in the case of a potential abuse situation (Citak Tunc et al, 2018).…”

“…The implementation of school-based programs is a promising approach to child abuse prevention. Most children daily attend school which provides opportunities for teachers and other school staff to detect child abuse risk factors (Citak Tunc et al, 2018;Daigneault et al, 2012;Nickerson et al, 2019). Review studies showed that school-based prevention programs increase a child's knowledge, self-protection skills, and the likelihood of abuse disclosure (Davis & Gidycz, 2000;MacIntyre & Carr, 2000;Rispens et al, 1997;Topping & Barron, 2009;Walsh et al, 2018).…”

Sexual Abuse Disclosure Mediates the Effect of an Abuse Prevention Program on Substantiation

“…Prevention programs designed to educate children about sexual abuse have proliferated (e.g., Citak Tunc et al, 2018) and may increase children’s knowledge about abuse and abuse risks (Finkelhor, 2009; see also Davis & Gidycz, 2000). Yet, little research has directly assessed the effects of child sexual abuse prevention programs on disclosure rates of child sexual abuse (Zwi et al, 2007), and no research has explored effects of prevention programs on child sexual abuse substantiation rates.…”

“I am Learning to Protect Myself with Mika:” A Teacher-based Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Program in Turkey

“…In recent years, there have been a number of CSA prevention programs implemented in Turkey. Two CSA prevention programs have been implemented specifically for preschool children in Turkey (Citak Tunc et al, 2018; Yılmaz Irmak et al, 2018). The “Body Safety Training Program” was effective in boosting participants’ self-protection skills and level of knowledge (Citak Tunc et al, 2018).…”