Since 1996 we have been at the forefront of creating a new paradigm for child sexual abuse prevention education.

WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO!

Child sexual abuse is a major public health problem affecting a remarkable number of children every day. In fact, researchers say that one out of four of our young girls will be molested by the time they are 18 and the number for boys is at least one of eight. The startling number at risk in our public schools is stunning. Research estimates that 4% of all children in our school system will be molested by someone connected to the school the time they graduate.

The number of children at risk of this kind of abuse is staggering. We know that, in order for child sexual abuse to happen there are four elements that must be present. Eliminating any one of them thwarts the entire process and protects children. The four elements, as defined by Dr. David Finkelhor in his book Child Sexual Abuse in 1986, are:

• A person who is motivated to sexually abuse a child

• The person with those tendencies and/or desires does nothing to overcome them or inhibit their own behavior

• There is an environment in which the abuse can occur.

• The potential offender can overcome any resistance from the child to his/her overtures

For the mid 1970s, professionals have concentrated prevention efforts on the fourth element - teaching children to resist. We have developed many excellent programs that teach children to say “no,” run away, and tell someone. These programs have had a profound impact. However, no matter how valuable it is to teach children to stand up for themselves and resist being abused in any way, these programs have transferred responsibility for preventing child sexual abuse from the adults, who are responsible for our children, to the children themselves. Now the youngest and most vulnerable among us are expected the carry the load of preventing an adult from sexually molesting them.

It is not that we have let adults off the hook. We did not know how to reach them to teach them how to create and maintain an environment in which child sexual abuse cannot occur. So, work with adults over the years has focused on what Keeping Them Safe refers to as IRT - Immediate Response Training.

These programs for adults address three areas: 1) how to deal with disclosures from children, 2) how to recognize children that might be suffering from abuse or are possibly in an abusive situation, and 3) how to report abuse to civil authorities. Although all these efforts are valuable, necessary in today’s world, and worthwhile, they are inadequate for prevention. These efforts can stop abuse from happening “again”, but they don’t stop it before it happens at all. More is needed if we are to stop child sexual abuse from happening in our homes, our schools, our churches, and our communities.

Our best opportunity to prevent this from every happening is to focus on the third element and create environments where no child sexual abuse can occur. This means that if we want to prevent child sexual abuse, we must teach adults (not just children) how to stop it before it happens. When adults can take actions to create environments where sexual abuse can’t happen, not only will we eradicate child sexual abuse from the world but we will also we will relieve our young children of the responsibility of standing alone to stop adults who want to prey on them.

Primary prevention is our only hope of keeping our children safe from sexual predators. Primary prevention is designed to keep the abuse from ever happening. Stopping abuse before it happens is our only guarantee of Keeping Them Safe.

The professionals at Arpeggias, LLC have led the way in developing a new approach to child sexual abuse prevention education. Keeping Them Safe is the program developed by Arpeggias for use in any group or organization that wants to develop and/or reinforce a safe environment for children and the adults who care for and work with them. Through this program, our professionals educate adults - all adults - about a new way to approach child sexual abuse prevention. The training programs include educating professionals as well as other adults and giving them a new set of tools for identifying potentially risky adults and intervening to prevent predators from achieving their goals.

What We've Achieved