Prevention
As a result of increased public concern over the sexual assault of children and other forms of child victimization, over the past 25 years schools and other community organizations have developed and implemented programs designed to help children prevent assaults and other victimizations. While these programs vary, most include four components:
- Helping children identify dangerous situations;
- Teaching children techniques for evading these situations, such as saying 'no,' yelling and screaming, and running away;
- Encouraging children to tell an adult about the incident;
- And assuring the child that the incident is not his/her fault.
CCRC researchers have investigated the efficacy of such programs. Among the findings:
- Children appear to acquire the concepts that are being taught in these programs.
- Children involved in school-based prevention programs were more likely to use the school-taught self-protection strategies when victimized or threatened; were more likely to feel they were successful in protecting themselves; and were more likely to disclose to someone about the victimization attempts.
- Children in school-based prevention programs were not able to lessen the seriousness of assaults and, in fact, received more injuries in sexual assaults.
