Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Education for Parents - Assessment Results and Action Plan

Assessment Results

           Our group researched how to most effectively provide child sexual abuse education for parents. We conducted this research by partnering with parents of children who attend schools within the community, and Prevent Child Abuse Utah (PCAU). Data was gathered using a focus group and a survey, which are forms of community-based participatory research (CBPR) primary data (Chow, 2005). A focus group was held at Orchard Elementary School, the goal of which was to help PCAU examine the proposed brochure titled “Keeping Your Child Safe from Sexual Abuse.” Distributing this brochure to parents from schools, will fulfill the mandate of HB 286, which requires schools to provide child sexual abuse education to parents by the 2016-2017 school year (Utah State Board of Education, 2014). Through much research, trial, and error, PCAU learned that a brochure sent home with students is the best way to educate parents regarding child sexual abuse. PCAU noticed that the trend is that few parents attend parent education courses. The brochure will efficiently and effectively spread this important information to parents.

          The focus group found the brochure to be informative, appropriate, and convenient. Many helpful statements were made to improve and add necessary content to the brochure. Participants stated that “the brochure needs to be paired with a website that provides further information, categorized by age appropriateness (personal communication, March 4, 2015),” “The warning signs of the sexual abuse section needs to be more specific to prevent parents from suspecting abuse when the child is actually dealing with everyday issues,” and “the brochure needs to include methods of responding appropriately to disclosure of abuse (personal communication, February 26, 2015).” Common input trends from participants included adding a clip art image of a boy’s face in distress along with the girl’s face already included, in order to avoid indirectly promoting the stereotype that girls are the only children who are sexually abused. They also suggested making the titles, “touching sexual abuse” and “non-touching sexual abuse” bold, to help these important items stand out. Another suggestion was to alter the design of the brochure by spacing sections uniformly, using variants of asterisks signifying different sources through the material to decrease confusion, and highlighting the 3 R’s, to better represent the material. Further insights included adding bullet points or bold font to certain sections to help draw attention to the main points. These ideas were primarily feedback in making the brochure more informative, presentable, and attractive, to draw the interest of parents. Parents from the focus group were given the choice of four different quotes, and they preferred the quote from Deondra Brown of the 5 Browns, child advocate and sexual abuse survivor. The focus group also suggested adding a section detailing steps that parents should take, and appropriate reactions, if they suspect a child has been abused.

          Feedback was also given regarding the method in which the brochures should be given to parents. It was discussed that if the brochures were sent in a packet of back-to-school papers, parents would be much less likely to look at it thoughtfully.  The group discussed the idea of the brochure being handed directly to parents by their child’s teacher, and the consensus was that parents would be much more likely to read the brochure this way. We plan to send an edited copy of the brochure to PCAU detailing specific changes suggested by the focus group.

As part of our research, we also distributed a survey regarding child sexual abuse prevention and education to 31 parents of students in grades K-12. We attended two parent education nights at Clearfield High School to distribute and collect paper copies of the survey. During this time we were able to talk with parents, and hear their concerns and successes regarding talking with their children about child sexual abuse awareness and prevention. This helped us to better understand the needs and concerns of parents. Table 1 shows common trends that were identified from the survey responses. Survey results show that parents want information regarding how to appropriately talk to their children about child sexual abuse prevention. Their responses indicate that they will likely read a brochure about child sexual abuse prevention that is sent home from their child’s school. The majority of parents also said that they would attend a child sexual abuse education course. This information varies from the experiences of PCAU. Recently, the Washington County School District in St. George, Utah, joined forces with PCAU, and set up a one evening training course to teach parents how to effectively talk with their children about child sexual abuse awareness and prevention. They sent out 10,000 invitations, with the option of attending one of three different nights, in order to accommodate the perceived interest, and parents’ busy schedules. The end result was that over a three day period, 15 people total attended this course. PCAU reports that through this experience and many others, that many parents don’t attend parent education courses, even though they feel that the information is important. This is the reason that the brochure is so important to PCAU, and to the community. Correct information regarding child sexual abuse prevention is likely to be distributed to more parents through a brochure than through an in person parent education training. This finding is an example of CBPR, and ensuring that a program meets the needs of the community. It is important for organizers to ensure that programs are “community based,” not “community placed” (Minkler, 2004, p. 686). PCAU is working to meet the needs of the community by distributing easy to read and access brochures that contain information for parents about child sexual abuse education, instead of asking busy parents to attend a parent night to obtain the same information.

          According to the survey, the majority of parents do not know the symptoms of child sexual abuse, and about half of the parents feel that they have the necessary skills to talk with their children about sexual abuse. This shows that parent education regarding child sexual abuse prevention is needed in our community. Survey results showed that the majority of parents report that they have talked with their child about sexual abuse awareness and prevention, and that parents believe that their child would know what to do if he/she were touched inappropriately. It is interesting to note that though most of the parents said that they talk to their own children about child sexual abuse awareness and prevention, the same parents mostly said that their own parents did not talk to them about this issue. It would be interesting to know if children feel that their parents talk to them about sexual abuse prevention issues. This survey shows important trends regarding the needs of the community regarding child sexual abuse awareness and prevention.   

Table 1

Information Gathered from Survey	Yes	No
“I would like more information about how to talk to my child about sexual abuse awareness and prevention.”	84%	16%
“I have the ability to identify the symptoms of child sexual abuse.”	35%	65%
“I have the necessary skills to talk to my child about sexual abuse.”	48%	52%
“My parents talked to me about child sexual abuse when I was a child.”	6%	94%
“I have talked with my own child about child sexual abuse.”	94%	6%
“I regularly talk with my child about sexual abuse awareness and prevention.”	19%	81%
“My child would know what to do if he/she were touched inappropriately.”	77%	23%
“I would likely read a brochure sent home from my child’s school regarding child sexual abuse education and prevention.”	81%	19%
"I would likely attend a child abuse prevention education course."	78%	22%
“I would likely complete an online child abuse education course.”	39%	61%

Action Plan

Plan for addressing the issue of child sexual abuse prevention education for parents

            The purpose of our group and our goals to be accomplished have changed throughout the course of our work on this project.  We initially identified the issue as parent education and child sexual abuse as a whole.  We soon realized that we had to narrow our scope if we were to be effective in accomplishing anything of value for local families as well as for our community partner, PCAU.  PCAU helped us to recognize that the area of addressing the problem of child sexual abuse prevention and education is to educate parents at home and children at school, through approved programs. We were charged with assessing the efficacy of a brochure prepared by Prevent Child Abuse Utah (PCAU), sent home from school with the intent of further educating parents.  After conducting the focus group about the brochures we now have some additional direction on where we should focus now.  There were a few items that needed to be changed in the brochure to  make it easier to read and the information more clear.  After the brochure has been updated it need to be disseminated to the parents.  

            Our plan for updating the brochures is to document all of the comments from the focus group and pass those along to PCAU because they have the master file.  We have created the list of changes, which is what our community partner was asking for.  This along with our own feedback will be of great assistance to PCAU in promoting social change.

Goals for addressing the issue of child sexual abuse prevention education for parents  

          Our goal is to provide access to accurate information for parents regarding child sexual abuse prevention, and open the lines of communication, in order for parents to teach their children about this important issue.  We plan to use the information that we gathered from the focus group and the survey, to find the most effective way to educate parents regarding how to teach their children about sexual abuse prevention and awareness. It is good for children to learn about child sexual abuse awareness and prevention through the school, but this education will likely be more effective if it is an ongoing conversation happening at home between parents and children. Through partnering with PCAU and schools within the community, we learned that the best way to distribute accurate information to help parents teach their children about child sexual abuse prevention and awareness is to send a brochure out through the schools. This is effective because it is quick and easy to access, read, and locate further information online through PCAU if parents have further questions. PCAU has learned through experience that when parent education nights are provided, few parents actually attend. Another issue that is important in attaining the goal of child sexual abuse prevention education for parents is to be aware of the five faces of oppression: (1) exploitation, (2) marginalization, (3) powerlessness, (4) cultural imperialism, and (5) violence (Pyles, pp. 165-168). Being aware of these issues will help to include everyone in the important issue of child sexual abuse prevention education, not just those in the dominant group. We came across a form of this when conducting our survey. PCAU helped us to realize that our survey was written on a high reading level, making it so that parents with a lower education level would not be able to fully understand the questions that were being asked. Through this experience, we learned the importance of being aware of oppression in order to avoid marginalization.  

Social change model selected to address the issue of child sexual abuse prevention education for parents

            The social change model that was selected for our project is the “Organizing Functional Communities Model”. According to Gamble (2010), the desired outcome for this model is: “action for social justice focused on advocacy and on behaviors and attitudes, may also provide a service”. Our project aims to advocate on behalf of children and families by focusing on changing attitudes and behaviors around how parents talk to their children about child sexual abuse. We are also coordinating with Prevent Child Abuse Utah to implement a parent-education program as a service to the community that will fulfill the requirements of House Bill 286.

The current social response to discussing this topic is avoidance. According to Prevent Child Abuse Director, Trina Taylor, “When Prevent Child Abuse sets up a booth at an event, people seem to walk on the other side, and avoid eye contact. We get very little interaction.” (Personal communication, August 30, 2015). It is important that this societal avoidance attitude change in order to help prevent child abuse. This is evidenced by the research.

According to research, “the root causes of maltreatment can be organized into a framework of four principal systems: (1) the child, (2) the family, (3) the community, and (4) the society.” Our goal is to help prevent child abuse in Utah. We aim to do this through educating the child, the family, the community and society as a whole. According to a study done by Mareen C. Kenny in 2009, it is critical to include parents and children in the psycho-educational process in order to help unite the family in a common purpose and a shared responsibility. “When parents are trained in abuse prevention, children receive repeated exposure to prevention information in the natural environment, parents are better able to identify victimization in their children and respond supportively to potential disclosures.”

          Our focus is to implement a program that combines all four of these powerful players in preventing child abuse. From HB 286 on Capitol Hill, to the in-class training in schools, to a brochure going home to follow-up with educating parents, the model of organizing functional communities is being put into place in a strategically effective manner. The work that our group has done will help to focus those efforts and make child abuse prevention in Utah easily accessible information, as well as practical.

Strategies and tactics that can be implemented to address the issue of child sexual abuse prevention education for parents

          Due to the expertise and well-established nature of PCAU, the primary strategy of our action plan will involve maintaining the working relationship that we have with this agency by helping further their purposes in connecting with children, families, and schools.  With this in mind, the strategy of implementing this unified action plan will include disseminating the edited and refined copy of the brochure to parents after the initial school newsletters are sent out at the beginning of the school year by the teachers. This will ensure that parents see the brochure without distraction from other information provided. Another strategy would be to ensure that the brochure will then be sent out to every parent by as many schools that will consent to doing so. We can do this by helping schools recognize that their doing so would help fulfill requirements of HB 286.

            Along with this strategy, another aspect of implementing this action plan would involve planning with PCAU for the creation of a specialized online course that parents can access to gain even further relevant knowledge of child abuse. This would include sections that are tailored to age appropriateness of the child. This could also include a video that can be watched by both parents and children together in learning how to develop a safety plan. As this is put together, it can then be included with the brochure document before distribution.

Manner in which the target population can play a key role in efforts to further child sexual abuse prevention education for parents

          It was decided with the help of Prevent Child Abuse Utah that our target population would be parents who have children in grades K-12.  At this point, the most specific way that the parents can play a key role is by disseminating the brochures and the included information to their peer groups and children.  The intention of the brochure is to help parents become more educated and empowered so they are better able to talk about and deal with child sexual abuse.  When parents and caregivers become involved, prevention efforts are much more successful.  The very best way they can play their key role is to become more educated and aware themselves in order to be a front-line fighter of child abuse.

          When parents become educated about sexual abuse prevention, their children receive repeated exposure to the information in their home environment which allows them to practice what they have learned in school in a safe environment.  Parents educated in child sexual abuse prevention can be encouraged to talk about the topic with their preschool-aged children, preventing some early childhood abuse.  Parents are also in frequent contact with other kids, and are in an excellent position to identify child victims and respond to disclosures.  If parents speak with their children regularly about sexual abuse, it makes it easier for the children to disclose it to them.  Communication about the topic will also help decrease the secrecy around it and facilitate conversation about sexuality in general. (Wurtele 2010) While we don’t expect the brochures alone to cause all of these things to happen, we hope that parents will use them and feel empowered to be just a little more involved in one of these areas.

Manner in which the action plan for child sexual abuse prevention education for parents can be evaluated for effectiveness

          To follow up on the effectiveness of our intervention in one year we can take a survey of students and parents to find out if they are more aware of child abuse prevention techniques.  This follow up will fall upon PCAU and future students who may continue the project.  The survey from this year could be used as the control to compare with their knowledge after the intervention, the pamphlet, has been implemented for a year. In a study the “control group is the ‘untreated’ group” which would describe the parents who have not yet received the pamphlet, thus it would be structured as a longitudinal study of its effectiveness (Lavrakas, 2008).  This survey could have some questions added to the end to evaluate the pamphlet’s effectiveness.  

In another study of a program to disperse information about child sexual abuse the children “were given a structured interview before and after the prevention group received training” to evaluate the effectiveness (Conte et al, 1985). We could do something similar if we had a group of parents who were willing to take a survey directly before and after reviewing the pamphlet. This method would give us more immediate results and we would not have to wait for the following school year or risk the attrition of a follow up take home survey. One aspect of this form of evaluation would be a more focused look at the intervention specifically, rather than general knowledge. The greatest challenge to this approach would be the willingness of parents to participate in this more direct approach and attend a focus group.

          Reducing the occurrence of child sexual abuse is an overwhelming task. An effective place to begin is to enlist the voice of the community through CBPR. This will ensure that the interventions offered will be accepted by the community. This can effectively be seen through the combined efforts of the Utah State House of Representatives passage of HB 286, PCAU, Utah schools, and parents. Working together, our community can reduce the devastating problem of child sexual abuse.

References

Chow, J.C., & Crowe, K. (2005). Community-based research and methods in community practice. In M.O. Weil (Ed.), The handbook of community practice (pp. 604-619). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Conte, J., Rosen, C., Saperstein, L., & Shermack, R. (1985). An evaluation of a program to prevent the sexual victimization of young children. Child Abuse & Neglect, 319-328.

Gamble. (2010). Conceptual frameworks and models for community practice. Community Practice Skills; local to global perspectives, 24-46.

Gateway, C. W. (2004). Risk and Protective Factors for Child Abuse and Neglect, Washington DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Kenny, M. C. (2010). Child sexual abuse education with ethnically diverse families. Children and Youth Services Review, 981-989.

Lavrakas, P. (2008). Encyclopedia of survey research methods. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications.

Minkler, M. (2004). Ethical challenges for the “outside” researcher in community based participatory research. Health Education and Behavior, 31(6), 684-697.

Pyles, L. (2014). Toward solidarity: Understanding oppression and working with identity politics. In L. Pyles (Ed.), Progressive community organizing: Reflective practice in a globalizing world, Second Edition (pp. 165-174). New York: Routledge.

Utah State Board of Education (2014). Minimums Caregiver/Guardian document. State Board requests public comment on sexual abuse prevention document. http://schoolboard.utah.gov/news/state-board-requests-public-comment-on-sexual-abuse-prevention-document

Wurtele, S. K., & Kenny, M. C. (2010). Partnering with parents to prevent childhood sexual abuse. Child Abuse Review, 19(2), 130–152.