Stop It Now! Philadelphia is Set for Launch

On September 26, STOP IT NOW! and Joseph J. Peters Institute (JJPI) will publicly launch STOP IT NOW! PHILADELPHIA. At a press event at the Philadelphia City Hall, STOP IT NOW! PHILADELPHIA will introduce a City Council resolution in support this new initiative. It will also release a new, award-winning advertising campaign.

The collaboration between STOP IT NOW! and JJPI began three years ago after David Lovitz, then Executive Director of JJPI, heard Fran Henry give a moving plenary presentation about STOP IT NOW! to over 1,000 members of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers. The next week, David called to what it would take for JJPI to start a program for abusers and their families in Philadelphia. For STOP IT NOW! the timing was right. We were looking for opportunities to expand our work in Vermont into a community that is more urban, culturally diverse, and representative of the rest of the United States. We told David what it takes to set a program like ours in motion: the number of opinion leaders needed; the need for support from both victim advocates and sex offender treatment providers; and, most of all, the level of commitment required from the host agency.

David’s call was one of many inquiries to our organization. But David did what few other callers have done – he contacted numerous stakeholders throughout Philadelphia to explore whether they would support this initiative. He actively looked into foundation interest and support for this idea. Then he asked key opinion leaders to join an advisory committee to start a STOP IT NOW! program in Philadelphia.

Over the past three years, JJPI has been joined by individuals and organizations working together to make STOP IT NOW! PHILADELPHIA a reality. These advisory board members include the Department of Human Services, the Family Support Line of Delaware County, the Institute for Safe Families, the Philadelphia Children’s Alliance, Supportive Child/Adult Network (SCAN), the Special Victims Unit of the Philadelphia Police Department, St. Gabriel’s System, and Women Organized Against Rape. JJPI and the entire advisory board have contributed a significant amount of time and resources to explore the potential of launching a STOP IT NOW! PHILADELPHIA program.

Once the decision was made to introduce STOP IT NOW! to Philadelphia, the more concrete details of ramping-up a new initiative needed to be developed. To begin addressing the cultural diversity within Philadelphia, MEE Productions and Philadelphia Health Services worked with STOP IT NOW! to create a series of focus groups in the African American and Latino communities. From these focus groups and others, Reimel Carter/Earle Palmer Brown created the series of ads for the media campaign. STOP IT NOW! also created the first Spanish-language brochure for sexual abusers and people who know them.

With the growing level of commitment and the success of our program in Vermont, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) became interested in evaluating STOP IT NOW!’s new public health initiative. CDC became a partner in the Philadelphia effort and hired Macro International to design and complete the program evaluation. Five partners from the funding community have also made this initiative possible: the Center on Crime, Communities and Culture of the Open Society Institute, the William Penn Foundation, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, Ms. Foundation for Women and the Dolfinger McMahon Foundation.

We believe that our proven concept, together with private, public, and nonprofit partners at both the local and national level, will indeed help to insure a successful campaign as we announce this groundbreaking effort at our press conference on September 26.