An Open Letter to Massachusetts Citizens About the Penn State Scandal and How We Can Prevent Child Sexual Abuse in Our State

November 14, 2011

While the Penn State child sex abuse scandal and cover-up grab national attention, the fact is that cases of child sexual abuse continue to be exposed with unrelenting regularity in every state and community across our country.  In Massachusetts alone just in the past six months, we have learned about the decades-long sexual abuse of boys treated by renowned pediatrician Dr. Melvin Levin of Children's Hospital, the revealed boyhood sexual abuse of Senator Scott Brown by a counselor at a Cape Cod summer camp, the sexual abuse of young female tennis players by former Massachusetts coach and International Tennis Hall of Famer Bob Hewitt. Many more current incidents of child sexual abuse involving less well-known abusers appear weekly in local newspapers all across our state.  

Predictably, the Sandusky/Paterno case has prompted the media to focus on who knew what and when. Legislators rush to file bills to strengthen reporting requirements, the alleged abuser is arrested and charged, and we all express sorry for the children who have been violated and for their families who are distressed beyond what we can even imagine.

But the truth is that these after-the-fact responses are insufficient to address what the American Medical Association has labeled "…a silent, violent epidemic."  It's time to support efforts aimed at preventing child sexual abuse from happening in the first place.  This is what Massachusetts Citizens for Children (MCC), lead agency for the Enough Abuse Campaign, has been working to do since the Campaign was launched in 2002.

A public opinion poll conducted in 2007 by the Campaign documented that:

• 80% of citizens believe child sexual abuse is a serious problem in our state    
• 75% said they believe it is preventable
• 64% said they would be willing to participate in local community trainings about child sexual abuse and how they can prevent it – up from 48% in a poll conducted four years earlier 

Clearly, citizens like you are critical partners in getting the word out that child sexual abuse can be prevented and that in Massachusetts, through the Enough Abuse Campaign, we have the tools and the tested strategies to get the job done.

As a parent, grandparent, or concerned citizen, we are asking you to:

1. Educate yourself about the real facts of child sexual abuse so that you can be an informed advocate for your children and all the children in your family and community.
2. Get involved with the Enough Abuse Campaign, a Massachusetts effort that has been recognized nationally as an effective model to mobilize communities and educate parents, youth, and a range of professionals and other adults about child sexual abuse and how to prevent it.
3. Support the Campaign with your dollars so we can achieve our goal: By 2015 every city and town in Massachusetts will be actively engaged in learning about child sexual abuse and preventing it. 

Here are the details.

The Enough Abuse Campaign is overseen by the Massachusetts Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Partnership, a collaboration of twenty statewide public agencies and private organizations. The Campaign was formed in 2002 under a 5-year grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, our nation's leading public health agency.  The Campaign is now operating in Greater Gloucester, Newton/Waltham, Orange/Athol area, Greater Lowell, Springfield, and in western rural counties. Efforts are currently underway to expand the Campaign to Cape Cod and other communities.

The Campaign's work has caused the CDC to call Massachusetts "one of the first states in the nation to lead a trailblazing effort to prevent child sexual abuse…."  The Ms. Foundation for Women has called the Campaign "an effort that breaks the mold on child sexual abuse in many ways. Its emphasis on community collaboration truly sets it apart from previous efforts.”  The Campaign was selected earlier this year by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as one of 12 exemplary projects in the country working to end child maltreatment.

While the Campaign mobilizes communities and trains their leaders to deliver free in-person community workshops and presentations, a new effort has been launched to educate concerned citizens in the privacy of their own homes and offices.  By "Joining the Movement" on the Campaign's homepage, members receive by email our "10 Conversations" series; a new short educational piece is sent twice each month for five months filled with critical information every concerned adult should know and can use to prevent sexual abuse. Topics include:

1. What is Child Sexual Abuse? Touching and Non-Touching Offenses
2. Who are the Abusers? How Can We Identify Them?
3. Grooming Tactics used by Sexual Abusers
4. Behavior and Physical Signs that Might Indicate Child Sexual Abuse
5. Sexual Behaviors of Children: Typical or Problematic?
6. Responding to Sexual Behaviors of Children: Building Skills to Respond Appropriately
7. Talk to Your Children: It's Easy if You Begin Early and Communicate Often
8. Impact of Child Sexual Abuse on Children
9. Keeping Children Safe on the Internet
10. The Public's Opinion on Child Sexual Abuse

The series is followed with regular email updates about the latest information in the field, activities of Campaign communities, special events and trainings, and profiles on outstanding prevention advocates.

So please take these actions today. Go to www.enoughabuse.org and view our brief video, "a silent epidemic." (Many have called it "powerful", "compelling", "a real eye opener.")  Then be sure to "Join the Movement" on the homepage so you can begin immediately receiving our "10 Conversations" series online. Tell family members, friends and colleagues about how they, too, can get educated and encourage them to join.

Make an online contribution now to fund our cutting-edge work. Currently, the Campaign is funded solely by a $75,000 grant from the national Ms. Foundation for Women. If we could double or triple that amount, we could reach more communities and youth-serving organizations with our trainings sooner.

Let's protect Massachusetts children and our communities from a tragedy like the Penn State scandal.   We can do it.  We have already begun.  Are you with us?  Our children are waiting…

Sincerely,

Jetta Bernier,

MCC Executive Director
For the Enough Abuse Campaign

The Key is to Pour Resources into Preventing These Crimes

The Boston Globe
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR | LIVING AMONG SEX OFFENDERS

The Key is to Pour Resources into Preventing These Crimes
September 04, 2011
IN HIS column “Follow evidence, not gut feeling, on sex offenders’’ (Op-ed, Aug. 28), Gareth Cook writes, “The question we must answer is, what do we want for these people, after they have been released?’’ Given that of every 100 sex abusers, 70 percent or more are never reported; of those who are, only two-thirds face criminal charges, and less than 15 percent of those are convicted and serve prison time, the better question is: What can we do to prevent these crimes from ever happening?

The public has already responded. In a 2007 poll, 650 Massachusetts residents were asked how state dollars to address child sexual abuse should best be spent. Thirty-seven percent said that we should invest in educating adults and communities about how they can prevent child sexual abuse in the first place. Only 20 percent said funds should be used to publicize the sex offender registry.

The work of the private-sector Enough Abuse Campaign prompted officials at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to hail Massachusetts as “one of the first states in the nation to lead a trailblazing effort to prevent child sexual abuse by building a movement of concerned citizens, community by community.’’ Let’s use our resources on programs working to prevent child sexual abuse, not on public notification efforts that research has shown to increase recidivism and make our communities and children less safe.

Jetta Bernier
Executive director
Massachusetts Citizens for Children
Boston
The writer directs the Enough Abuse Campaign.

An answer to "Why don't kids just tell somebody?"

by Jetta Bernier, Executive Director of Massachusetts Citizens for Children, lead agency for the Enough Abuse Campaign

Details of Sam's* heart-wrenching story spill out in strings of voice messages he leaves on my office phone when he can't sleep from wondering how to prevent other kids from experiencing the trauma that ended his childhood long ago at age 7.  His experience of rape by the man down the hall, the group home counselor and others, underscores how different reality is for those who believe we could fix this problem if only child victims would tell, and  for those who as adult survivors of child rape understand why they often can't.

These differences are highlighted by the public's reaction to Senator Scott Brown's story of boyhood sexual abuse by a camp counselor. While praising him for the disclosure, many wonder why he didn't tell anyone at the time it happened or why he isn't naming his abuser now. In fact, the Boston Globe's April 23^rd editorial ("Brown needn't say more") rightly supported the position that he should be left to deal with the trauma in his own way and in his own time. It went further, however, to capture a prevailing but flawed belief: "Camps, schools, and other institutions that work with young people would be safer places if more sexual abuse victims felt emboldened to tell their stories."

This focus on after-the-fact reporting places the burden of responsibility for preventing future sexual abuse on the small shoulders of child victims rather than on those of adults and communities where it belongs. It ignores the powerful forces that cripple the ability of many child victims to tell. Since most sexual abuse is committed by individuals within the child's family or extended circle of trust, disclosing abuse can be a complicated and scary option. Threats, shame, and blame are powerful tools that cunning abusers use with finesse to exact silence from their victims. For many children, denying the impact and seriousness of the trauma, often into adulthood, can seem like the best way to survive it. Waiting for child victims to come forward, therefore, cannot be the fix. Without solid efforts to prevent sexual abuse in the first place, we will never achieve the goals of safety and protection which are the right of every child and so fundamental to their healthy development and psychological well-being, both as children and as adults.

When victims do tell, institutions often do not know how best to respond. The recent case involving sexual abuse of an 8-year old Brockton student allegedly by a school tutor is instructive. The main reaction of these school officials has been a rush to correct backlogs in their CORI system. Since up to 90 percent of child rapists are never caught, relying on CORI to pronounce school workers "clean" should not boost anyone's confidence about safety. Those who commit sexual crimes against children are experts at fitting in, and many excel at creating a caring, trusting, and even socially charming persona. This cover allows them to groom their targeted victims, as well as parents, colleagues and the community. Once an abuser makes it past the hiring process, the guard is down and the prevailing attitude is that everyone on the inside is a safe person - only those on the outside could pose a potential risk.

CORI would not have revealed the crimes against children that spanned the 30-year career of a Maynard school employee. Nor would CORI have red-flagged the recent alleged abuse of children by a summer camp employee on the Cape, or the alleged abuse of children across decades by a former Children's Hospital pediatrician.

Establishing policies, practices and trainings aimed at preventing child sexual abuse and not simply reporting it after it's discovered, therefore, must be the priority for schools and youth-serving organizations. Most aren't clear about how to proceed. A guided policy assessment process, prevention trainings and technical assistance are available through the Enough Abuse Campaign, whose work has prompted federal CDC officials to call Massachusetts "…one of the first states in the nation to lead a trailblazing effort to prevent child sexual abuse by building a movement of concerned citizens, community by community.”  

We are all deeply grateful when victims of child rape find the strength to name their abusers. However, the ultimate responsibility and power to change the culture in our communities and institutions that has allowed abusers to act with impunity for so long, remains squarely with us – the adults.

*Name has been changed. 

A Movement to End Child Sexual Abuse, Community by Community

New "Enough Abuse Campaign" Website Launched

This article was republished by MCC from the Ms. Foundation for Women's Blog, "Igniting Change". The new website can be found by going to www.enoughabuse.org

Bringing an end to child sexual abuse (CSA) is a cause all of us should be able to get behind. Since 2009, the Ms. Foundation and NoVo Foundation have been working to build a new movement to end CSA that looks beyond the criminalization of offenders (which experts agree will never fully solve the problem), and seeks instead to advance a comprehensive, community-based prevention model that encourages individuals and organizations to collaborate in unique ways to protect children from CSA before it occurs.

One exciting example of how groups are working to craft new solutions to the problem of CSA comes courtesy of a campaign and website recently launched by Ms. Foundation grantee partner Massachusetts Citizens for Children (MCC). Developed as part of the MA Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Partnership (of which MCC is the lead agency), the Enough Abuse Campaign and website are designed to provide clear, usable information that can help protect children from child sexual abuse -- and according to Monique Hoeflinger, Senior Program Officer at the Ms. Foundation for Women, theirs is an advocacy effort that breaks the mold on CSA in many ways.

In the first place, the campaign places its focuses on an adult responsibility model for preventing child sexual abuse -- which is a significant shift from the vast majority of prevention programs that focus on educating children. And the strategies the campaign offers focus on abuse closer to home, emphasizing that abuse happens most often among people who are known to and trusted by the child. This, too, is a departure from the dominant "stranger danger" message that that continues to inform policy and media representations of CSA. Additionally, Hoeflinger notes, the campaign's emphasis on community collaboration truly sets it apart from previous efforts. While the majority of campaigns tend to focus on training individuals in the service sector, the Enough Abuse model locates itself within communities, and goes beyond a limited set of trainings to foster the building of real and lasting relationships among diverse stakeholders. (At present, the campaign involves 26 different organizations.) “Massachusetts Citizens for Children is building a grassroots movement across the state of Massachusetts, community by community," Hoeflinger says. "They represent a unique collaboration that has shifted the conversation about child sexual abuse and provided new avenues for people to get involved.”

At EnoughAbuse.org, parents, professionals and others who have children in their lives can find the information they need about,

• Behaviors that might indicate that an adult poses a risk to children;
• How to differentiate between sexual behaviors of children that are "developmentally expected" and those that are inappropriate, coercive, abusive, or pose a risk to other children;
• Physical and behavioral signs that might indicate a child is being abused;
• Specific ways parents can talk to their children to keep them safe.

This new version of the website, which was made possible by a grant from the Ms. Foundation for Women, also offers visitors an opportunity to connect with communities involved with the campaign throughout Massachusetts; access advice and information for victims and abusers; sign a pledge to Join the Movement; and post their own testimonials about the importance of ending child sexual abuse.

For more information about MCC and the Enough Abuse Campaign, watch the following video, produced by the Ms. Foundation as part of the 'Voices From the Field' archive.