Excerpt from Tucson.com
What’s being done to teach children to avoid sexual abuse, you ask?
“Preventing child sexual abuse is a job for adults,” responds Debbie Rich, the chief executive officer of the Girls Scouts of Southern Arizona.
Period.
She’s emphatic: Our job, not the children’s.
And that’s why the Girl Scouts is partnering with the YMCA of Southern Arizona to offer a two-hour online class that any adult can take to learn how to prevent sexual abuse of children, how to identify it if it’s happening and how to respond responsibly.
“This is different because this is for the entire community — not just for teachers or parents or cafeteria workers. It’s available to everyone,” Rich told us. “Anybody can go online, read through the program, answer the questions and get a certificate saying that they know how to prevent, recognize and react responsibly to child sexual abuse.”
The online curriculum is the Stewards of Children program offered by Darkness to Light, a national anti-abuse group. There’s also a curriculum for groups that’s taught by certified facilitators.
Darkness to Light says that one in 10 children will be sexually abused by age 18.
The best way to have an impact on that disturbing statistic, Rich said, is to educate a substantial number of adults in the community.
The Girl Scouts and the YMCA aim for 50,000 adults to complete the online program. The partners also aim to train advocates in all of Southern Arizona’s nonprofit and child-focused organizations.
“If we want to move the needle, that’s what we need to do,” said Dane Woll, president and CEO of the YMCA of Southern Arizona. “We think it’s very doable.”
Rich noted that “reacting responsibly” to abuse is “the critical piece. This training gives you all the check points to know how to react” if you recognize abuse.
“I would like to see all of our day care parents take the course, and people involved with youth groups, swim teams and such should keep an eye out for group classes” that will be scheduled in the coming weeks and months, Woll said.
Meanwhile, as Rich so emphatically noted, it’s up to the adults to protect the children. So go online and spend a couple of hours learning what you need to know in order to do that.
Read the entire article here.
For more information on preventing child sexual abuse in your community, visit The 5 Steps to Protecting Our ChildrenTM, or take D2L’s award-winning Stewards of Children® prevention training.
