Will 2013 be "The Year to Protect Children"?

2012 was a year of awakening for many Americans when it came to child safety.  Casey Anthony and Jerry Sandusky are two cases that come to mind simply because of the notoriety and media frenzy that took place surrounding them.  However, there were so many other cases last year: the students in the California classroom, many of whom didn’t even know they were abused and exploited by their teacher; the Internet stings of child pornographers across the country; the countless bullying incidents and cyberbullying deaths.  I could go on, but I believe at this point most people are aware that children in our country being bullied and abused on a regular basis. I don’t think it’s necessary for me to inundate you with cases and statistics to get my point across.

And just what is my point?  Each and every person reading this needs to step up in 2013 and do more.  One cannot know that a problem of this magnitude exists and do nothing and think that is acceptable.  These are innocent children and they need our help. It will take every one of us doing something, working together, to stop child maltreatment.

I often ask, “Why don’t people do more?” I know people are aware, how can they not be with the constant media coverage?  But I know awareness is not enough.  As I said, everyone must act if we are going to stop it.  Because it is AWARENESS + ACTION = PREVENTION! 

Maybe people don’t act because they are busy or because they have other causes they champion.  Or maybe they just don’t know what to do. I don’t want to take away from the time, efforts or money people give to other causes.  And I certainly don’t want to add more to the already stressful lives of American families.  But I also know that with a problem of this size it will take everyone doing something, no matter how small, to stop it.

So I decided to start the year off with a great blog for you – a list of things you can do to help children, parents, businesses, and communities – a list of ways to get involved.  Some are easy and free, while some are a bit more complex, but there is something that everyone can do.  It’s up to you to decide which ones you will choose, but I hope you will choose to do some of these throughout the year.  Imagine how great you will feel knowing that you are helping to protect children and prevent the abuse and unspeakable maltreatment that occurs behind closed doors, sometimes right on our own streets and neighborhoods.

• Volunteer your time or attend a fundraiser for Monique Burr Foundation (MBF) or your own favorite child abuse prevention charity.

• Take a class to learn more about sexual abuse prevention or recognizing and reporting abuse so you are an informed citizen and can help a child in need.  Learn more about prevention trainings on our website.

• Call your local school(s) or school district to confirm they are using our Speak Up Be Safe™ (SUBS) bullying and child abuse prevention curriculum in their school or in all elementary schools.

• Learn more about what Florida schools are doing to not only educate children, but to keep them safe as well at FLDOE.org/safeschools/.

• Give up one coffee or one lunch out a week and donate that money each month to MBF for our SUBS program.  That money can fund the program for nearly 90 students in one school year.

• Talk to your own children about important safety issues. Use the resources available on the MBF website and blog to help you become more comfortable and find ways to start those conversations.

• Learn more about the signs of abuse from the Department of Children & Families and Lauren’s Kids; find materials and resources about sexual abuse prevention, including a link to the Safer, Smarter Kids interactive parent toolkit from Lauren’s Kids at dontmissthesigns.org.

• Link to MBF’s website and blog on your own personal and/or professional website and email and ask your friends, professional contacts, and your child’s school to do the same.  Add a link to this blog post in your email signature to help us spread the word. Let’s make 2013 the Year to Protect Children!

• Talk to other parents about tough topics such as bullying, abuse, and sexting, etc., because only when we all start talking about these topics will they become less taboo, and only then will we change the culture of secrecy and silence that allows them to continue.

• Write letters to your congressional leaders (state and federal) and ask them to support legislation and provide funding to support prevention education for students and school staff as well as other youth serving organizations.

• Be available and present in your children’s lives even if you are busy with your own life. Monitor online use, learn more about technology (use our online resources and blog) and know what they are doing.  Don’t assume a one-time talk with them is sufficient.  Predators are adept at finding the gaps in children’s safety nets and using them to their advantage.  Make sure your child’s safety net is secure.

• Ask about child protection policies wherever you take your children (learn more about safe policies in an upcoming blog series) and if an organization doesn’t have them or won’t create them, take your child elsewhere.  You are not only being an advocate for your child, you are letting the agency know this is an important issue they need to address.

MBF thanks you for partnering with us to protect children this year. Make sure you come back to leave a comment and tell us what you’re doing to help make 2013 the Year to Protect Children. We’d love to hear from you!

A Reason to Skip One Day of Starbucks

As the Executive Director of the Monique Burr Foundation for Children, I am honestly overwhelmed and humbled by the progress we have made this year implementing our Speak Up Be Safe™ bullying and child abuse prevention program in elementary schools across Florida.  We expect to serve 400% more students than we did last school year.  Those 450,000 students attend the Monique Burr Foundation’s Speak Up Be Safe program in 47 out of 67 counties across the state.  (Don’t worry; we are working hard on the additional 20 counties who have not approved Speak Up Be Safe yet.) 

I think about media stories on child abuse and the horrific results from long term bullying that have caught our attention over the past year.  Some of those stories happening right here in Florida.   I don’t know a single person who didn’t hang their head when this kind of news hit the airwaves, and yet despite a nation full of concern, we are still struggling to raise funds to provide this preventative program in our public schools at no cost to the school.  We talk about these stories with ease, but at $2 a student, I wonder if our program would have changed the news.

As funds permit, we can and are implementing control features to keep our children, schools, and communities safer.  School counselors and teachers have expressed gratitude for a program that helps them teach students how to be safe against all forms of abuse and bullying at no cost to them.  Parents now have tools they didn’t even know they needed to communicate with their kids about topics that are not always comfortable but necessary.

Studies validate our approach and verify that the program content is age appropriate.  Our team of 7 employees is already working on updates to our Speak Up Be Safe program for the 2013 – 2014 school year.  We want to include the most current information about cyberbullying and bullying prevention along with developing fun interactive tools to reinforce lessons learned in the classroom.  We have also partnered with Lauren’s Kids who provides the “Safer, Smarter Kids” program for VPK – Kindergarten students. 

With all this work going on, I’m known to make a Starbucks run every now and then.  Around the holidays, I chose a Gingerbread latte… the Grande is $4.58.  It costs MBF only $2 to provide instruction and materials to a student in our state.  My coffee would pay for two students with a little left over.

Currently, we do not receive any state funding to supplement the cost of these programs.  And while it seems so simple at $2 per student, we still struggle to raise enough to meet our state’s need. In this New Year, would you be willing to step up as our kids speak up?  At the expense of one cup of Starbucks, you can provide the Speak Up Be Safe program to a student.  If you can’t forego the coffee, at a minimum “like” us on Facebook, visit our website and educate yourself on what we’re doing even if you do not have children or grandchildren.  Chances are, we’re in your community and we’re making a difference.

Happy New Year!
Lynn

The Reality of Child Sexual Abuse & Exploitation in the U.S. in the aftermath of the Sandusky Verdict

In light of the Sandusky verdict Tuesday, it might be tempting for us to try to put the entire scandal, the entire hideous thought of what happened in that town behind us. But I’d like to take this opportunity to remind everyone that that was just one case out of thousands. That every day in our country there are thousands of children, thousands of victims, millions of survivors, living out the same terrible life story as Sandusky's victims.

I am not here to debate the sentence, not here to give voice to Sandusky via his statement, not to rehash the case or trial. I am here only to ask what of the others and where do we, as a society, go from here? As Judge John Cleland told Sandusky at his sentencing “The crime is not only what you did to their bodies but to their psyches and their souls and the assault to the well-being of the larger community in which we all live."

“The larger community in which we all live?” Offenders do not offend in a bubble. They do not offend only their victims. It is time for the larger community to see this not as an individual crime, not as a family issue, but as a public safety issue, as a societal ill that every single person can help to eradicate if only… if only they grasp the reality of the problem, if only they are willing to stop turning away at the terrible thought of what is happening to children, if only they will stand up with the person next to them and say, “enough! – I’ve had enough and I am going to do something about it.”

Although the following statistics¹ are not easy to read, please take this step and learn about child sexual abuse and exploitation. When we open our eyes to the truth we become better educated and can begin to address this societal epidemic and put an end to it.

What is Child Sexual Abuse?

·      Child sex abuse includes body contact, such as kissing and oral, anal, or vaginal sex. Sex abuse can also include “flashing” or showing private parts, forcing children to watch pornography, voyeurism (trying to look at a child’s naked body), pressuring children for sex, having sex in front of children, and exploiting children for pornography or prostitution.

·     “Child-on-child sexual abuse” occurs when a prepubescent child is abused sexually by another child or children. Often, the child perpetrator has been sexually victimized by an adult previously. “Inter-sibling abuse” occurs when one sibling molests his/her own sibling.

How common is it really?

·      In the United States, approximately 1 out of every 4 girls and 1 out of every 6 boys is sexually abused.

·      Approximately 1.3 million children in America are sexually assaulted each year. There are an estimated 60 million survivors of childhood sexual abuse in America.

·      A 2004 study revealed that 9.6% of public school children, accounting for 4.5 million students, have experienced sexual misconduct, from being told sexual jokes to sexual intercourse by educators. Offenders include teachers (18%), coaches (15%), substitute teachers (13%), principals (6%), and student counselors (5%).

How does it affect victims?

·      Sexual abuse, or any kind of abuse, negatively and permanently affects the physical development of a child’s brain. These physical changes result in psychological and emotional problems in adulthood. 

·      Women who were sexually abused as children reported significantly lower SAT test scores than women who were not abused.

Is most abuse reported?

·      Most children do not tell anyone they have been abused, and those who do tell often have to tell several people before any action is taken.

·      It is estimated that less than half of all sexual assaults on children are reported to the police.

·      Children may not reveal sexual abuse because they feel shame or guilt, they worry no one will believe them, they fear being removed from their home, and they or their family may have been threatened. Very young children may not have the language skills to report the abuse or may not understand they are being abused.

·      The generally lower rate for male sex abuse may be largely inaccurate due to underreporting. Because men are traditionally encouraged to be physically strong and competitive, male victims may be more hesitant to report sexual abuse because they feel they are “less of a man.”

Who are the abusers?

·      According to the APA, women are the abusers in about 14% of cases reported among boys and 6% of cases reported among girls.

·      Male offenders who abused girls have an average of 52 victims each. Men who molested boys had an average of 150 victims each.

·      Approximately 23% of reported cases of child sexual abuse are perpetrated by individuals under the age of 18.

·      Approximately 60% of sexual abusers are known to the child but are not family members, such as family friends, babysitters, or neighbors.

·      Approximately 30% of sexual abusers are family members, such as fathers, mothers, brothers, uncles, or cousins.

·      Researchers estimate that 20 million Americans have been victims of parental incest as children.

Child Pornography

·      Child pornography is one of the fastest growing Internet businesses, increasing at an average 150% per year for each of the last 10 years. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) reports that it has reviewed more than 51 million child pornography images and videos.

·      There is a clear link between possession of child pornography and the actual violation of children. The NCMEC estimates that 40% or more of people who possess child pornography also sexually assault children.

·      Of the arrests for the possession of child pornography during 2000-2001 in the U.S., 83% had pornographic materials of children between ages 6 and 12, 39% had material involving children between ages 3 and 5, and 19% had material of toddlers under the age of 3 or infants.

Pedophiles & Child Molesters

·      Not all pedophiles are child molesters, and some child molesters do not meet the clinical definition of a pedophile. Pedophilia is a clinical term that describes a person who has had repeated arousing fantasies, sexual urges, or behaviors related to sexual activities with children for at least six months. Pedophiles do not necessarily have to act on their urges. Child molesters have the same attraction to children, but they act on their urges.

·      According to Dr. Herbert Wagemaker, an estimated 4% of the population suffers from sexual attraction toward children.

·      The re-arrest rate for convicted child molesters is 52%.

·      Between 250,000 – 500,000 child molesters reside in the U.S. today.

·      Child molesters come from all backgrounds and social classes. However, most molesters (1) are male, (2) work in an environment surrounded by children, (3) befriend the parents first and then gain the child’s trust, and (4) attend events such as sports, camping, and video arcades.

·      According to the FBI, approximately 1 in 10 men have molested a child, with little chance of being caught (3%). Additionally, the FBI estimates that a child has almost a 25% chance of being molested.

·      The FBI estimates that there is a sex offender living in every square mile in the United States.

While these statistics are alarming, our intent is not to be alarmist. The Monique Burr Foundation for Children works very hard to educate and empower both children and adults through our Speak Up Be Safe™ program and through our community resources like this blog.

It is our hope that the legacy of Jerry Sandusky, for both his victims and for the community at large will be one of “education and empowerment.” Prevent Child Abuse America published a “Call to Action” Tuesday that we hope every American Citizen will read and we are happy to share it!

Every American citizen needs to get involved and act to protect all children whether it affects us personally or not.  All children deserve to be safe from sexual assault and exploitation.  And all adults can either be a part of the problem or a part of the solution. Today, now, you get to make the choice.  Please follow our blog and Facebook page to learn more and become a partner with us to protect all children!  Thank you for your bravery and your dedication!

¹  http://facts.randomhistory.com/child-sexual-abuse-facts.html