Beyond “Do No Harm”
A Scalable Approach to Trauma Informed Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Training
Speaker: Paula Sellars, MSW
Child sexual abuse is a persistent and pernicious public health problem. It is a social problem that requires skillful social solutions. Given the rate of child sexual abuse and its profound consequences, ideally every adult who has interaction with children would be educated to prevent and respond to it, a costly and unenforceable endeavor. Yet, prevention training is needed that meets the intensity and scale of the problem, and which turns out social change agents who can impact their surrounding community.
Meanwhile, evidence suggests that this same adult population, these would-be change agents, have personal experience of child sexual abuse at a rate of perhaps at least 1 in 5. This means that any training population will itself contain adults who were victimized as children, or who were (and are) themselves members of a family or system that had survivors and perpetrators in its ranks. Superimpose these facts upon a cultural context of fear and taboo, a response system in overwhelm, and a dearth of practical prevention skills in the general public, and what is needed is a training methodology that is standardized, trauma-informed, and fosters constructive personal risk taking. Stewards of Children® is that sea change for child sexual abuse prevention training. Darkness to Light Facilitators are catalysts of social transformation
