Public Policy Strengthens Prevention Efforts

STOP IT NOW! has come a long way since Fran offered a workshop at a conference for survivors of child sexual abuse, and no one came. It was only nine years ago that Fran sat for two long hours, alone in the room assigned to her to deliver her presentation, wondering if STOP IT NOW! would ever be able to get its prevention message across to potential allies in the struggle to end child sexual abuse. Now in 2001, Fran and the rest of the STOP IT NOW! staff are not only hot commodities on the conference circuit, but we are chairing conference planning committees and being asked to join advisory boards and steering committees in the arenas of sex offender treatment, sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse prevention. Fran is frequently invited as a plenary speaker. Workshops and trainings conducted by STOP IT NOW! staff are consistently well-attended and receive outstanding evaluations.

Historically, child sexual abuse has often been neglected and ignored as a social and public health problem. It has frequently fallen between the cracks of the interest and attention of many who could be our "natural allies" in preventing child sexual abuse. Those working in the field of sexual and family violence prevention felt that child sexual abuse would be best addressed by the child abuse prevention people, and the child abuse prevention professionals looked to the sexual assault field to address the issue of child sexual abuse.

In order to address this avoidance of confronting child sexual abuse prevention directly, a central goal of STOP IT NOW!’s public policy work has always been to elevate child sexual abuse prevention to the forefront of the public health agenda of the United States. In addition to the social marketing and education efforts that STOP IT NOW! targets to community members in our local sites, we have worked to influence a wide variety of professional and governmental "stakeholders" to understand child sexual abuse as a public health issue and to prioritize and promote the prevention of child sexual abuse. To reach and work with professionals in fields related to child sexual abuse prevention, we have presented at their conferences and annual meetings and involved ourselves in their mechanisms for strategic planning and action. Recently, our accomplishments in this regard have been particularly heartening.

In 2000, we presented at 19 conferences and meetings. This year, as well, we carried out 19 presentations, 70 percent of which were at completely new venues for STOP IT NOW!. Fran has been invited to deliver plenary addresses and speeches to a wide variety of child sexual abuse prevention-related audiences, including: the National Summit of the Center for Sex Offender Management, the National Advisory Council on Violence and Abuse of the American Medical Association, and the San Diego Conference on Child and Family Maltreatment. Joan and Beth have conducted a wide array of daylong trainings and workshops on topics ranging from using the Internet for prevention to how to create prevention programs in diverse communities using the STOP IT NOW! model. Alisa has presented a workshop called "Having New Eyes: Understanding, Preventing, and Responding to Child Sexual Abuse as a Public Health Issue" and has been asked to lead public policy workshops for child abuse and sexual assault prevention audiences.

Other recent accomplishments in working with some of our allies in child sexual abuse prevention can be seen in the Significant Achievement Award that Fran received from the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA), her invitation to chair the program committee of ATSA’s 20th annual conference, and the invitation for STOP IT NOW! to join the Steering Committee of the National Call to Action, a child abuse prevention initiative that is comprised of all of the leading child abuse prevention organizations in the country. Further, Alisa was recently invited to join the Advisory Board of the National Sexual Violence Resource Center (NSVRC) and Joan continues to serve as a board member for the national organization, Parents Helping Parents. All of these presentations and achievements serve as testimony to STOP IT NOW!’s growing influence in framing child sexual abuse as a preventable public health issue and in creating partnerships in our work to end the sexual abuse of children.