Developing Knowledge About Risk and Protective Factors for the Design of Effective Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Programs

Have you ever wondered: what is a risk factor? Or even more baffling: what is
a protective factor? Well, concepts of risk and protection, in the context of
“factors,” are ideas from the field of public health prevention. As practitioners of
this field, Stop It Now! knows that in order to design prevention programs that are
truly effective in reducing the incidence of child sexual abuse, that the body of
knowledge about what puts an individual at risk for potentially developing sexual
behavior problems or sexually abusive behaviors, and what protective factors might
mitigate or eliminate that risk, must be developed and put to use. While risk factors
are considered the vulnerabilities that a person might have to developing sexual
behavior problems or sexually abusive behavior, protective factors, also referred to
as assets and resiliency factors, explain why some people with vulnerability to
these behaviors do not abuse.

How Do We Use Risk and Protective Factors to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse?

If we know what the risk factors for potentially developing sexually abusive behavior
are, we can create prevention programs that focus on moderating, managing or eliminating those risks. If we know what the protective factors are that keep people
from developing sexually abusive behavior, we can develop programs that address
known vulnerabilities by promoting and enhancing these assets and resiliency factors.
This is public health science applied towards prevention.

We know that there are three kinds of risk factors: static, stable and dynamic.
Static risk factors are those that cannot be changed, e.g. characteristics with which
a person is born, who a person’s parents are, or events that have happened to the
person in the past. Stable risk factors are characteristics, circumstances or conditions in a person’s life that are ongoing and difficult to alter, such as emotional and social deficits, use of substances, etc. Dynamic risk factors are those that we look at most closely in developing prevention programming, for they are the most changeable of all three of the types of risk factors. Examples of dynamic risk factors could be a person’s level of knowledge about healthy sexual behavior and actions, or the types of media and entertainment that this person consumes. All this said, it is important to realize that the identification of risk factors or vulnerabilities is not a prediction that someone will necessarily develop sexual behavior problems. Though risk factors serve as a guideline, they do not constitute a prophecy!1

How Do You Develop This “Body of Knowledge?”

Knowing the importance of using risk and protective factors to conduct solid prevention work prompted Stop It Now! to initiate a joint project with the Division of Violence Prevention (DVP) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Together with DVP staff and three other researchers, Dr. Karl Hanson, Dr. Pamela McMahon and Gail Ryan, Stop It Now! is conducting a literature review that is examining the last ten years-worth of individual studies that contain data about risk and protective factors for the development of sexually abusive behavior. Upon completion of the literature review, we will produce a synthesis and metaanalysis of findings. Our aim is to have this comprehensive body of knowledge constitute the heart of a national database that will be expanded upon and grown as new information about risk and protective factors for sexually abusing a child is uncovered. This database will be made available for the design of effective primary and secondary public health child sexual abuse prevention programs throughout the United States.

1 Ryan, Gail “Offense Specific Treatment Providers’ Role as Advocates for ‘Perpetration Prevention. Presentation delivered at National Adolescent Perpetration Network Conference, Cherry Hill, NJ, May 2003.

Alisa Klein

Stop It Now! Minnesota Opens to the Public

Stop It Now! Minnesota launched its campaign on May 29th with a powerful event MOVING BEYOND FEAR: A Call to Action to Prevent the Perpetration of Child Sexual Abuse at the Minnesota Department of Health in St. Paul. The campaign will feature public events, media features, dissemination of posters and brochures, and access to the helpline at 1-888-PREVENT.

The event featured Fran Henry, Founder of Stop It Now! and Patty Wetterling of the Jacob Wetterling Foundation, who spoke about how she became involved in perpetrator prevention. Mrs. Wetterling shared her story of the outpouring of support after her son Jacob was abducted and how many people called or wrote about their own stories of sexual abuse. She committed herself to working on prevention many years ago and committed her support as a founding member of the Stop It Now! Minnesota campaign.

Corinne Graffunder, Branch Chief of Program Dissemination at the Division of
Violence Prevention at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
reviewed CDC’s financial commitment to perpetrator prevention. Stop it Now!
Minnesota is partially funded by a three-year cooperative agreement with CDC.

Stop It Now! Minnesota is sponsored by Project Pathfinder, Inc .in collaboration
with the Dakota County Attorneys Office, the Jacob Wetterling Foundation, the Midwest Children’s Resource Center, the Minnesota Coalition Against Sexual Assault, the Minnesota Department of Corrections, the Minnesota Department of Health, the Plymouth Police Department, Prevent Child Abuse Minnesota, Responsible Minnesota Business, and the Sexual Violence Center. Project Pathfinder’s Executive Director, Steven Sawyer, demonstrated to the 130 attendees the important role sex offender treatment plays in preventing abuse. Yvonne Cournoyer, Program Director of Stop It Now! Minnesota, reported on the results of the random digit dial telephone survey of residents of the seven county Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minnesota. The results demonstrated support for prevention and a lack of information by the public about what to do if they suspect abuse.

In addition to members of the steering committee and advisory board, who have worked behind the scenes for more than two years to bring the campaign to the public, other attendees included Amy Klobuchar, President of the Minnesota County Attorneys Association who shared that organization’s endorsement of Stop It Now! Minnesota.

To contact Stop It Now! Minnesota call 651-644-8515 or email at stopitnowmn@projectpathfinder.org.

Founder's Safety Net for Children

With our tenth anniversary a year behind us, I have turned my attention to the future. Stop It Now! has an important future to consider. We have an organization that is passionate about preventing sexual harm to children.

Children thrive in healthy environments of love and encouragement. Groundbreaking concepts, like introducing public health principles into the prevention of child sexual abuse, also flourish when conditions are right. Favorable conditions include political timing, scientific hypotheses that are ready to be tested, and adequate doses of funding.

Finding funds for prevention has always been a challenge and Stop It Now! has been grateful for those pioneering people and foundations that have funded us in the past. But in this economy, we need something more. I created a giving circle, the Founder.s Safety Net for Children, to provide stability and inspiration to our work. Members of the Founder.s Safety Net pledge at least $1,000 a year for three years.

I chose the word "founder" because so many people have responded generously with their time and funds as they heard about my experiences of surviving sexual abuse and Stop It Now!'s plans for preventing it. The words "safety net" convey the safety we want to bring to every child.s life. If we had more stable support for our work, the staff and volunteers would be able to sustain an even greater commitment to social change.

I was the first member of Founder.s Safety Net, writing a check drawn from my first paycheck of the new year. Soon after we had more members, as I invited a few current supporters to join the Founder.s Safety Net. William Ferguson, Jr., Robert Mazer, Jenny Ladd, Jean Beard, Larry Kressley, Sally Levering, and Ellen Kaufman, M.D. are the first members.

Stop It Now! has always welcomed gifts of time and money at any level from its supporters. At this time, we especially hope that people with the means will stretch to become members of the Founder.s Safety Net for Children to inspire us to accomplish even more in our second decade. Please contact me if you would like to hear more about the Founder.s Safety Net at 413-268-3096 x11 or fhenry@stopitnow.org.

A Unique Gift for Stop It Now!

Special thanks to the anonymous donor who donated the proceeds from the sale of
their used car to Stop It Now!. Cars 4 Causes, a California non-profit, sold this generous donor’s car and at his or her request, sent the proceeds to us. This was a
wonderful surprise gift.

Helpline

The Stop It Now! toll-free helpline (888-PREVENT) provides a place for adults to talk confidentially about a potential situation of child sexual abuse. Helpline staff assist callers in identifying their available options and next steps while providing support and resource information. This unique and crucial resource is the only one of its kind in the country. Even though we have been able to advertise in only a limited way, the helpline has received over 2,500 calls since its inception in 1995. From 2001 to 2002, we saw the largest yearly total increase: 462 to 664. The helpline currently averages 55 calls a month.

Who Calls the Helpline?

In 2002, 72% of calls were from family or friends. 12% from abusers or adults at-risk to abuse. 16% were information requests. In addition, roughly 75% of our
callers are female and 25% male.

What are We Learning?

Most of the calls are from family members of both the (potential) adult or youth
abuser and the (potential) victim. These calls remind us of how complicated issues
of child sexual abuse are for families and therefore, that our prevention efforts
must embrace this complexity if we want people to change their behaviors.

Amanda Horowitz

Heart in Hand Leads Us into the Future

Have you noticed our newsletter redesign and new logo? We sought an image
that would dynamically interpret the values of our program: holding adults accountable to prevent abuse as we extend help to them. With the “heart in hand” logo, our intentions have been realized and we hope you agree.

A new logo and look for our publications are not the only changes at Stop It Now!. We have recently reviewed what we have achieved and learned in our first decade, outlined the barriers to eliminating the sexual abuse of children, and crafted an ambitious plan to overcome those barriers. A three year business plan resulted from our review. In the coming months, we will aggressively pursue support for our plans. If you have comments on our new look, or would like to talk about our plans for the future, please call Fran Henry at 413 268 3096 x11 or email at fhenry@stopitnow.org.

Site News

GEORGIA
Prevent Child Abuse Georgia joins Stop It Now! as our newest collaborative partner. Funded through a grant from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Falconer Foundation, Stop It Now! Georgia will focus on
reaching parents of youth with sexual behavior problems. The program will draw upon the experience of other site programs, especially Stop It Now! Vermont where we learned about the isolation parents feel when discovering sexually abusive behaviors in their childen.

MINNESOTA
Stop It Now! Minnesota has conducted a random digit dial telephone survey of 500 adult residents of the St. Paul/Minneapolis metro area. Initial results support Stop It Now!'s mission including three out of four (76.6%) adults are interested in learning
how to recognize an adult at risk for sexually abusing a child.

PHILADELPHIA
With new funding from the Ms. Foundation for Women and an appropriation from the Philadelphia Department of Human Services, Stop It Now! has the funding to bring the Stop It Now! media and training campaign into the community. Staff are working closely with local partners in North Philadelphia, to launch this community focus in November 2003 with a dialogue between survivors, recovering sex offenders and family members.

VERMONT
Despite reduced funding Vermont maintains its visibility through letters to key stakeholders, through public service announcements broadcast by local radio stations, and through holding public dialogues for state officials and offices. We continue to seek funding and operate low cost projects to maintain our presence.

UNITED KINGDOM
Stop It Now! UK is expanding its efforts in new and exciting directions. Tany Alexander has been hired as the coordinator for the Thames Valley project, bringing the number of funded sites in the UK to three. The UK national office has launched their website at www.stopitnow.org.uk and published "Child.s Play?: Preventing Abuse Among Children and Young People," adapted from our U.S. version. Finally, their helpline may be the best measure of success, generating more calls in the first six months than the first two years of our campaign.

Stop It Now! In the News

Stop It Now!’s innovations of social marketing and public health applied to preventing child sexual abuse are being recommended for adoption by prominent organizations. Stop It Now! Vermont was chosen as one of five case studies in Lessons in Evaluating Communications Campaigns, prepared for the communications Consortium Media Center by Julia Coffman of the Harvard Family Research Project. The monograph was released in June of 2003.

Turning Point, an initiative of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the
W. K. Kellogg Foundation, aims to transform and strengthen the public health system by making it more collaborative and community-based. Turning Point established a collaborative to bring the insights of social marketing to the field of public health. The collaborative produced Social Marketing and Public Health: Lessons from the Field. Stop It Now! is a featured case study in the publication, released in May 2003. For more information, please review the website at www.turningpointprogram.org.

The Child Welfare League of America released A Framework for Community
Action: Making Children a National Priority in May 2003. It is designed for use by community leaders across the country who want to know about recommended practices and programs. Stop It Now! was featured as a model practice in the monograph. The publication is available from the League at www.cwla.org. Finally, Fran Henry and Stop It Now! are featured in profiles in Emerging Health Care Leadership, a project of Harvard University. The publication should be released in September 2003.