The Need for a Comprehensive Public Health Approach to Preventing Child Sexual Abuse

Letourneau, Elizabeth J.; Eaton, William W.; Bass, Judith; Berlin, Fred S.; Moore, S.G.

doi:10.1177/003335491412900303

Cited by 92 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…When prevention programs are implemented, most are designed to help potential victims protect themselves from abuse (Whitaker et al, 2008; Wurtele, 2009). There is growing recognition of the need for a more comprehensive approach to prevention, including approaches that specifically target potential perpetrators and the onset of CSA (Letourneau, Eaton, Bass, Berlin, & Moore, 2014; Smallbone, Marshall, & Wortley, 2008; Whitaker et al, 2008; Wurtele, 2009). …”

Section: Traditional Approaches To Preventing Csa Victimizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This may be due, in part, to public misconceptions about CSA perpetration. When people think of sexual offenders, they often envision sexually deviant and predatory adults with high likelihood of recidivism (Finkelhor, Ormrod, & Chaffin, 2009; Letourneau, Eaton, et al, 2014; Mejia, Cheyne, & Dorfman, 2012). The reality is quite different: Adolescents comprise a substantial portion of CSA perpetrators, and there is reason to believe their behavior is transient and modifiable.…”

Section: Preventing the Onset Of Csa Perpetration: An Adolescent-focumentioning

confidence: 99%

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Preventing the Onset of Child Sexual Abuse by Targeting Young Adolescents With Universal Prevention Programming

et al. 2017

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Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a serious public health problem that increases risk for physical and mental health problems across the life course. Young adolescents are responsible for a substantial portion of CSA offending, yet to our knowledge, no validated prevention programs that target CSA perpetration by youth exist. Most existing efforts to address CSA rely on reactive criminal justice policies or programs that teach children to protect themselves; neither approach is well validated. Given the high rates of desistance from sexual offending following a youth’s first CSA-related adjudication, it seems plausible that many youth could be prevented from engaging in their first offense. The goal of this article is to examine how school-based universal prevention programs might be used to prevent CSA perpetrated by adolescents. We review the literature on risk and protective factors for CSA perpetration and identify several promising factors to target in an intervention. We also summarize the literature on programs that have been effective at preventing adolescent dating violence and other serious problem behaviors. Finally, we describe a new CSA prevention program under development and early evaluation and make recommendations for program design characteristics, including unambiguous messaging, parental involvement, multisession dosage, skills practice, and bystander considerations.

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Section: Traditional Approaches To Preventing Csa Victimizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Preventing the Onset Of Csa Perpetration: An Adolescent-focumentioning

confidence: 99%

Preventing the Onset of Child Sexual Abuse by Targeting Young Adolescents With Universal Prevention Programming

et al. 2017

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“…Given the well-documented and far-reaching financial, emotional, and health-related costs associated with CSA, we need not only treatment but also prevention (Letourneau et al 2014a). Widespread adoption of effective CSA prevention strategies has been an elusive goal (Letourneau et al 2014a, b;Mercy 1999), but it is potentially achievable with judicious application of resources, rigorous methodology, and selection of promising intervention targets.…”

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confidence: 99%

Parent-Focused Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse

2015

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Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a serious public health issue. Current after-the-fact approaches to treating victims and punishing offenders are not adequate to address a problem of this magnitude; development and rigorous evaluation of CSA prevention strategies are critical. We propose that CSA prevention efforts should target parents of young children. Parents have been neglected as a focus of CSA prevention; they merit attention given their potential to improve children's safety via effective communication and monitoring. This paper provides an overview of current strategies for reducing CSA prevalence and their limitations, presents a rationale for parent-focused CSA prevention, and discusses considerations pertinent to development of an effective parent-focused approach. Parent-focused CSA prevention offers potential as a public health approach to prevention of CSA, and it is time that we devote resources toward developing and studying this important area.

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“…Other challenges include the lack of information about risk factors for first time perpetration and the protective factors that might limit that risk , the separation of research, academic journals, government centers and even conferences for those working with victims and those working with perpetrators of sexual abuse (Letourneau et al, 2014), the lack of theoretical guidance to identify promising programs and policies at the community level , the continued media framing of sexual violence as a sex crime story that promotes angry and fearful responses or introduces skepticism that allows the public to ignore the problem (Letourneau et al, 2014;McCartan et al, 2015), and the continued lack of funding streams for primary prevention programs (Cohen, David, & Graffunder, 2006). However, even with these seemingly insurmountable challenges, government agencies are exerting new leadership and focusing resources on primary prevention through stopping initial perpetration of sexual violence, new initiatives are beginning to open small and important funding streams for child sexual abuse prevention, and a growing number of programs are able to demonstrate successful outcomes building a base of promising practices for sexual violence prevention.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Even less funding is available for evaluation of these limited number of innovative prevention strategies (Letourneau et al, 2014). For example, the Centers for Disease…”

Section: The Cost and Savings Of A Public Health Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%