Given the significant rates of child sexual abuse (CSA) in the United States (12%), as well as the deleterious? consequences for victims exposed to such maltreatment, identifying an effective prevention program is clearly? a priority. As discussed in Healthy People 2010, """"""""the evaluation of ongoing programs is a major component? to help identify effective approaches for violence prevention."""""""" There is growing awareness that child care? professionals, such as teachers, child care personnel, and clergy, are in a unique position to identify possible? sexual abuse cases and intervene on behalf of children by virtue of their accessibility to children and their? expertise in child development. Programs to train child care professionals about child maltreatment have? received insufficient attention and evaluation. The primary goal of this study is to conduct a multi-site? controlled evaluation of an already existing CSA prevention program, Darkness To Light's Stewards of? Children, on impacting child care professionals' knowledge, attitudes, and behavior related to CSA. Darkness? to Light (DTL), a national non-profit organization seeking to protect children from sexual abuse, has? developed a three hour training program for child care professionals to assist them in understanding,? recognizing, and appropriately responding to CSA. DTL's sexual abuse prevention training is offered via an? in-person training format and soon via a web-based training format. Investigating best implementation? strategies is also a key issue in developing and implementing cost effective programs aimed to prevent CSA.? This proposed project involves 300 child care professionals recruited from children advocacy centers across? three states to be randomly assigned to one of three conditions: (1) in-person training, (2) web- based training,? or (3) no training exposure. Dependant variables will include measures of CSA knowledge, attitudes about? CSA, self report preventative behaviors, response to hypothetical behavioral vignettes, and organizational? policy and behavior changes. The current proposal involves a joint collaboration between well-established? researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina's National Crime Victims Research and Treatment? Center, a non-profit community organization Darkness to Light, as well as partnering children's advocacy? centers across several states.
| Rheingold, Alyssa A; Zajac, Kristyn; Chapman, Jason E et al. (2015) Child sexual abuse prevention training for childcare professionals: an independent multi-site randomized controlled trial of Stewards of Children. Prev Sci 16:374-85 |
| Rheingold, Alyssa A; Zajac, Kristyn; Patton, Meghan (2012) Feasibility and acceptability of a child sexual abuse prevention program for childcare professionals: comparison of a web-based and in-person training. J Child Sex Abus 21:422-36 |
