Reviewing the Focus: A Summary and Critique of Child-Focused Sexual Abuse Prevention

Abstract

Due to the high incidence, and widespread detrimental health consequences, of child sexual abuse (CSA), effective prevention remains at the forefront of public and mental health research, prevention and intervention agendas. To date much of the focus of prevention has been on school-based education programs designed to teach children skills to evade adult sexual advances, and disclose past or ongoing abuse. Evaluation of sexual abuse prevention programs demonstrate their effectiveness in increasing children's knowledge of CSA concepts and protection skills, but little is known about their effects on children's capacity to prevent abuse. Moreover, concerns persist about the unintended side-effects for young children such as anxiety, worry and wariness of touch. This paper summarizes the recent history of CSA prevention and the critique of child-focused protection programs in order to demonstrate the need to compliment or replace these programs by focusing more on protectors in the children's ecology, specifically parents, in order to create safer environments in which abuse is less likely to occur.

The Effect of COVID on Child Maltreatment: A Review

“…This is reflective of work conducted by Bryant et al (2020), who sought to promote dialogue and social systems aimed at preventing child maltreatment through education and community-based resources [23]. Schools can become trusted environments that engage families and larger communities to share the responsibility of keeping children safe against abuse similarly to what teachers do already [69,171]. According to Oliver (2020), teachers play a significant role in supporting children suffering from abuse.…”

Structural Reasons for School Violence and Education Strategies

“…The sixth reason -abuse of the student in the home environment -has been defined as a specific structural reason associated with violence because, although it can also include characteristics of the other reasons, the context has several particular characteristics (Rudolph & Zimmer-Gembeck, 2018;Ryan et al, 2018). These particularities require attention in the school moral education plan and in the planning of support strategies.…”

Professionals’ Understandings of and Attitudes to the Prevention of Sexual Abuse: An International Exploratory Study

“…However, over the last 20 years, since seminal work in the early 2000s ( Laws, 2000 ; Smallbone et al, 2008 ; Wortley & Smallbone, 2006 ), the research and practitioner community have started to advocate for a public health approach to preventing sexual abuse resulting in a slow but steady cultural shift. This movement is based upon research and practice, that demonstrates that sexual abuse is a life course and multi-disciplinary issue impacting not only individuals, but communities and society (please see, Brown, 2017 ; Fenton et al, 2016 ; McKibbin & Humphreys, 2020 ; Nelson, 2016 ; Rudolph & Zimmer-Gembeck, 2016 ; Tabachnick et al, 2016 , for a broader discussion of the sexual abuse prevention literature and the use of public health models in responding to sexual abuse). The public health approach offers a unique insight into preventing and responding to sexual abuse by focusing on the safety and benefits for the largest group of people possible and providing a comprehensive response to the problem ( Kemshall & Moulden, 2016 ; Laws, 2000 ; McCartan et al, 2015 ; Smallbone et al, 2008 ; Tabachnick, 2013 ; Wortley & Smallbone, 2006 ).…”