This is a collection of currently available resources and initiatives related to child sexual abuse prevention. The handbook provides descriptions of organizations, programs, projects and a wide range of resources. It offers user-friendly icons to assist the reader in locating specific types of resources. In addition, the manual features category indices, resource bibliographies, and highlights related research and key stakeholders. (Vawnet.org)

Directory of resources from more than 400 sexual abuse prevention programs about effective strategies for reducing child sexual abuse. Includes a review of organizations, program models, initiatives, and other resources that can be used to establish or improve child sexual abuse prevention efforts. (Childwelfare.gov)

Introduction
BY KAREN BAKER, LMSW, NSVRC DIRECTOR

Child sexual abuse violates the trust, safety and age-appropriate development that should be a natural part of each child’s life. Even worse, this especially offensive crime is most commonly committed by adults known to the child, in fact, often by those very people entrusted with the child’s care.

Its frequency and deeply harmful impact make it one of our most heinous social problems with heartbreaking long-term costs and consequences for individuals, families and communities.

Many otherwise divergent organizations find common ground in a shared commitment to preventing child sexual abuse. Importantly, they share a similar vision of creating strong, healthy communities that include adults from all walks of life working together to protect, value and nurture all children. While they agree that more resources must be devoted to preventing child sexual abuse, it is more difficult to arrive at consensus on which strategies work most effectively. This publication offers a snapshot of some of the currently available resources and research, and identifies themes and key players.

It is critical to draw upon a wide range of strategies to begin to impact this highly complex problem. In reviewing the current status, it is clear that many more resources exist in certain areas than in others. A truly comprehensive approach to preventing child sexual abuse must involve adults and children; males and females; individuals, groups and organizations; and be offered in a variety of formats and settings that are culturally appropriate. We must also implement a range of prevention strategies including those designed to prevent adults from ever abusing a child; those giving children some skills and language to report potential boundary violations; and tools to reduce the likelihood of high-risk behaviors from escalating into sexual abuse.

All adults and every organization and community needs to assume personal responsibility for preventing child sexual abuse. We must make it our business to ensure the safety of children in every venue including homes, schools, churches and neighborhoods.

We do not yet know which prevention approaches, or combination of strategies, will ultimately prove to be most effective. Many programs are understandably quite invested in their particular model. We are encouraged by the abundance of passion, creativity, and genuine commitment to preventing child sexual abuse throughout the country. What is most lacking at this time is a coordinated national prevention plan. A comprehensive approach will employ multiple strategies; provide thorough evaluation of existing programs; and assure sufficient resources to simultaneously address the current victims and perpetrators; while effectively preventing any further child sexual abuse.

The National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) hopes that this resource collection will prove useful for those currently working to prevent child sexual abuse; will inspire others to join the cause; will raise important questions about the current status of prevention efforts; and will stimulate additional creativity and the development of layered strategies. We encourage ongoing community discussions allowing us to identify the next steps necessary to move child sexual abuse prevention to the forefront of the national agenda.

Comments from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
BY CORINNE GRAFFUNDER, M.P.H., CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION (CDC)

Child sexual abuse is a wide-spread and very serious public health threat with significant long-term consequences. Child sexual abuse affects victims not only while they are young, but throughout their lifetime with a wide range of adverse physical and behavioral health conditions, including poor academic performance, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and risky sexual behavior. It may even shorten life expectancy by heightening the risk of chronic and infectious disease.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) utilizes the public health model to address the prevention of child sexual abuse with a focus on primary prevention, preventing perpetration before it occurs. As with all of its violence and injury prevention activities, CDC is focused on developing a strong evidence base and using this evidence to develop and disseminate effective programs to prevent child sexual assault.

Efforts to prevent perpetration must include advances in public health research. To provide a framework for this research, CDC’s Injury Research Agenda, published in 2003, highlights several focus areas:

❚ Examining how perpetration develops, risk and protective factors for perpetration, and optimal times and settings for prevention;
❚ Developing, evaluating, and disseminating interventions to prevent perpetration;
❚ Identifying and changing societal norms that support child sexual assault; and
❚ Documenting the health consequences of child sexual assault across the lifespan.

Prevention is a challenge, but CDC is dedicated to increasing the safety and protection of children by encouraging the adoption of evidence-based prevention programs. CDC congratulates the National Sexual Violence Resource Center on its creation of this resource directory and looks forward to continued collaborative work to provide the information, tools and resources that help local and state efforts to adopt effective programs.

Download Preventing Child Sexual Abuse: A National Resource Directory and Handbook

PDF format, 5.7MB, 270Pages.

National Sexual Violence Resource Center
A Project of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape
http://www.nsvrc.org

Table of Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Comments from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Overview
The National Sexual Violence Resource Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Project Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
About this Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
How to Use this Directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Voices from the Field
The Role of the Association for Sexual Abuse Prevention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Child Abuse Prevention: Role of Nurse Examiners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
The Role of the Center for Sex Offender Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
The Role of the Child Welfare League of America. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
The Role of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
in Combating Child Sexual Exploitation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
The Role of Children’s Advocacy Centers in Prevention. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
The Role of Rape Crisis Centers and Anti-Sexual Assault Coalitions in
Preventing Child Sexual Abuse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
The Role of Prevent Child Abuse America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Having New Eyes: Bringing Public Health Science to the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse . . . . . . . 25
Research and Resources
Costs and Consequences of Child Sexual Abuse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Developing, Selecting, and Evaluating Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Programs and Initiatives . . . . 33
Selected Bibliography of Research Articles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Directory of Resources, Programs, and Initiatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Preventing Online Exploitation
Web-based Resources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Online Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Selected Bibliographies
Child Sexual Abuse Prevention, Articles and Reports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
Selected Book List—Adults, Professionals, Parents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Selected Book List—Children. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Organization Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
Directory Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235

OVERVIEW:

The National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC)

The National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) is a comprehensive collection and distribution center for information, statistics, and resources related to sexual violence. It serves and supports state, territory, and tribal anti-sexual assault coalitions, rape crisis centers, allied organizations, community projects, health care providers, policymakers, government entities, media, educators, researchers, and the general public. With a large and growing library of resources, the NSVRC equips those working to end sexual violence with resources, technical assistance, and training that enable them to provide quality prevention and intervention services.

A project of the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape, the NSVRC is funded through a cooperative agreement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Violence Prevention.

Project Background

In 2002, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded a supplemental grant to the NSVRC to strengthen its capacity to provide information and technical assistance relative to the prevention of child sexual abuse. The NSVRC hopes that this collection will move child sexual abuse prevention to the forefront of our national efforts.

In an effort to determine priorities, the NSVRC polled the following groups in December 2002:
❚ Child Sexual Abuse Prevention (CSAP) listserv members,
❚ Members of the executive committee of the Association for Sexual Abuse Prevention (ASAP),
❚ Attendees of the 2002 CDC-sponsored conference, “Collaborative Efforts to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse,”
❚ Certain CDC staff working with sexual abuse prevention, and
❚ State and territory anti-sexual assault coalitions.

Results from this survey indicated that the creation of a national directory of child sexual abuse prevention programs and initiatives was a top priority. The NSVRC expanded this directory project to provide additional information such as research, program considerations, and articles from the field. A portion of one survey response illustrates the need in the field for this resource directory:

In a small rural program, we don’t have many resources, including time to research, etc…

The NSVRC contacted over 400 organizations and individuals to collect information on child sexual abuse prevention programs, resources, and initiatives.

About this Directory

This resource directory specifically seeks to include and highlight child sexual abuse prevention organizations, programs, initiatives, and resources that are unique, innovative, and/or available for purchase or could be used as a model for other programs and communities.

It primarily includes information on child sexual abuse prevention efforts in the United States. Additional resources from Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia are also included.

The primary goals of this resource directory are to:
1. Encourage the field to consider multiple strategies for approaching child sexual abuse prevention, recognizing and valuing the complexity and continuum of approaches.
2. Highlight existing prevention initiatives and provide descriptions and contact information.
3. Provide information and resources to assist other programs and organizations in replicating existing prevention strategies and creating new approaches.

If you would like to submit new or updated information on child sexual abuse prevention initiatives, programs, and/or resources, please send information to:
Librarian
National Sexual Violence Resource Center
123 North Enola Drive
Enola, PA 17025
or
e-mail: resources@nsvrc.org.

The NSVRC will continue to update its resource library and the web version of this resource directory as new information becomes available, www.nsvrc.org.

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