Do you think the government should mandate preventative education for K-8?
Over the past few years, we’ve seen much more governmental involvement and interest in child sexual abuse legislation. This is certainly one avenue to prevention and early intervention, and lately there has been some success with initiatives for prevention programs developed for children.
Mandates should also include adult-focused prevention, especially in the field of education. Child sexual abuse prevention is primarily an adult responsibility. There is no doubt that children need to understand concepts like physical boundaries, appropriate touch, and reporting uncomfortable situations or actual abuse to a trusted adult. But no matter how much education children receive, they cannot always fend off unwanted advances or overcome threats and manipulation – things at which abusers excel.
Adults are uniquely positioned to protect kids by creating environments that are as safe as possible. We should equip kids with the knowledge to understand abuse and to protect themselves, and then we should do everything in our power to ensure they never have to use this knowledge.
Ideal mandates would take this into account and focus on prevention and response education for youth workers. Mandated reporting is not enough – there must be a strong element of prevention included. We mention educators, specifically. This is because educators identify 52% of all identified child abuse cases, more than any other profession including child protective services agencies and the police. Teachers may be the single best protection network children have, and yet two-thirds of them have not received training in how to prevent, recognize, and report child sexual abuse.
All of these options are part of a comprehensive system to prevent child sexual abuse. Ideally, every government, community, and parent would recognize the importance of protecting children from sexual abuse. Cultural change requires a team effort.