CSA Prevention Training for Child Care Professionals: Stewards of Children

Medical University Of South Carolina, Charleston SC

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Linked publications & trials

Abstract

Given the significant rates of child sexual abuse (CSA) in the United States (12%), as well as the deleterious[unreadable] consequences for victims exposed to such maltreatment, identifying an effective prevention program is clearly[unreadable] a priority. As discussed in Healthy People 2010, "the evaluation of ongoing programs is a major component[unreadable] to help identify effective approaches for violence prevention." There is growing awareness that child care[unreadable] professionals, such as teachers, child care personnel, and clergy, are in a unique position to identify possible[unreadable] sexual abuse cases and intervene on behalf of children by virtue of their accessibility to children and their[unreadable] expertise in child development. Programs to train child care professionals about child maltreatment have[unreadable] received insufficient attention and evaluation. The primary goal of this study is to conduct a multi-site[unreadable] controlled evaluation of an already existing CSA prevention program, Darkness To Light's Stewards of[unreadable] Children, on impacting child care professionals' knowledge, attitudes, and behavior related to CSA. Darkness[unreadable] to Light (DTL), a national non-profit organization seeking to protect children from sexual abuse, has[unreadable] developed a three hour training program for child care professionals to assist them in understanding,[unreadable] recognizing, and appropriately responding to CSA. DTL's sexual abuse prevention training is offered via an[unreadable] in-person training format and soon via a web-based training format. Investigating best implementation[unreadable] strategies is also a key issue in developing and implementing cost effective programs aimed to prevent CSA.[unreadable] This proposed project involves 300 child care professionals recruited from children advocacy centers across[unreadable] three states to be randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) in-person training, (2) web- based training,[unreadable] or (3) no training exposure. Dependant variables will include measures of CSA knowledge, attitudes about[unreadable] CSA, self report preventative behaviors, response to hypothetical behavioral vignettes, and organizational[unreadable] policy and behavior changes. The current proposal involves a joint collaboration between well-established[unreadable] researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina's National Crime Victims Research and Treatment[unreadable] Center, a non-profit community organization Darkness to Light, as well as partnering children's advocacy[unreadable] centers across several states.