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YOU Can Prevent Child Sexual Abuse. We’ll show you how.
Through our Safety Stars program for schools and youth organizations, our Pledge to Prevent™ online action campaign, and the Brave Movement led by survivors and their allies, you can take action to prevent child sexual abuse in your home and community. Get involved today!
Prevention Is Possible
Random digit dial surveys of Massachusetts residents conducted for MassKids by MC Squared Consulting and UMASS Poll confirm that citizens believe we can end the scourge of child sexual abuse and many are eager to join the fight.
Key Poll Findings:
- 8 out of 10 residents believe child sexual abuse is a serious problem in the Commonwealth.
- More than 3 out of 4 citizens believe child sexual abuse is preventable.
- 93% believe adults and communities rather than children should take prime responsibility for preventing child sexual abuse.
- 64% of citizens surveyed said they would be willing to participate in local trainings to learn more about child sexual abuse and how to prevent it.
- 50% of those surveyed ranked protection from child abuse, including child sexual abuse, as most important to a child’s well-being; quality education and quality medical care were ranked next at 20% and 15% respectively. Economic security and quality child care were ranked last at 7% and 1.5%.
- 36.6% said that any state funds allocated to combat child sexual abuse should first be spent to educate adults and communities about how they can prevent the problem; better police and state child protection investigations was ranked the second priority at 35.4%; more publicity about the sexual offender registry was ranked next at 20.5%. Only 7.5% rated more treatment for sex offenders as a priority.
This section highlights ways you as a citizen, parent, school or youth organization member or survivor of childhood sexual abuse can get involved in specific, achievable actions to prevent child sexual abuse in your homes and communities.
Here are citizens and celebrities working with Enough Abuse to take action to prevent child sexual abuse.
Pre-Prevention Summit Event
Safety Stars
Safety STARS is an Enough Abuse program that supports schools and youth-serving organizations to prevent child sexual abuse through:
- high quality in-person and online trainings;
- cutting-edge assessment and prevention tools; and
- expert technical assistance on prevention policies.
We help organizations earn their Safety Stars, improve safety for the children they serve and reduce civil and criminal liabilities that can result when sexual abuse occurs.
Let us Help Your School or YSO Earn Its Safety Stars by…
Screening prospective employees to keep out unsafe individuals;
Training staff and volunteers about child sexual abuse and how to prevent it;
Adopting a comprehensive Code of Conduct for staff and students;
Responding to staff boundary violations with specific tested protocols; and
Scanning physical spaces to reduce opportunities for abuse to occur.
Pledge to Prevent
Pledge to Prevent™ is a unique online action campaign to prevent child sexual abuse. Its goal is to harness the public’s keen awareness about the problem and provide thousands of individuals across the country with the education they need to then take concrete, practical actions to prevent it in their homes and communities.
Visit www.pledgetoprevent.org to learn more.
Show Your Hand. Take a Stand!
Brave Movement
The Brave Movement is a powerful and global survivor-centered movement to end childhood sexual violence. Launched in 2022, Brave Movement is demanding bold and transformative action from leaders of governments and institutions to rapidly scale comprehensive programs of prevention, healing and justice.
Supporters can join the movement via the email sign up and choose from a range of actions including signing petitions and writing to U.S. elected officials to urge their support of the National Blueprint to End Sexual Violence Against Children and Adolescents.
Brave Movement Massachusetts
Since its launch in 2002, the Enough Abuse Campaign has been a home and safe haven for survivors of childhood sexual abuse and their allies. Together survivor/advocates and Enough Abuse have worked together to develop cutting-edge prevention resources to educate and engage others in the movement to end child sexual abuse.
Together we led the successful effort to reform civil and criminal Statute of Limitations laws that are now working to provide justice for survivors and accountability for abusers. We are pushing for new legislation to require training of school and youth organization employees about how to prevent sexual abuse and to strengthen prevention policies in those institutions.
In 2022/2023, Enough Abuse will organize “Brave Movement Massachusetts” and will reach out to and engage more survivors that are ready to share their experiences and their energy to demand bold action from community, state and national leaders to end sexual violence against children. Watch this space for developments.