April is Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Month – celebrating 10 years of prevention training

Synopsis

• Darkness to Light is celebrating 10 years of training adults in Stewards of Children® child sexual abuse prevention training
• Charleston partners, including the Exchange Club of Charleston, have made our success possible
• Preliminary research has shown our prevention training to be effective in protecting more children
• For Child Abuse Prevention Month, cable network TLC has created and released today a PSA for Darkness to Light titled, “Talk About Child Sexual Abuse”
• Darkness to Light has several local activities planned to acknowledge Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Month during  April

In April, as the nation recognizes Child Abuse Prevention Month, Darkness to Light (D2L) will celebrate Charleston’s role as an incubator for sexual abuse prevention education and social change. Since our founding in 2000, we’ve seen how local leadership and support from Charleston based schools, donors, and partners has made Charleston a model for child sexual abuse prevention. It has helped us reach out nationally, with the lessons learned here about how to keep children safe and build resilient communities. In August of last year, we celebrated over 1,000,000 adults trained in our Stewards of Children® training program, and this year we are celebrating 10 years of training adults in how to recognize, prevent, and respond to child sexual abuse.

In 2006, when Darkness to Light first began training adults, youth serving organizations were wary of our approach, perhaps fearing that talking about child sexual abuse would force hard conversations about the extent of the problem in local communities and across the nation. Although there had been some momentum around training children, (remember “stranger danger?”), the concept of training adults to prevent child sexual abuse was new and challenging. However, today adults, institutions, and organizations realize that to keep children safe, all adults must understand and recognize the signs of abuse, which means seeking out the kind of training Darkness to Light provides.

“At Darkness to Light we are extremely thankful the national dialogue regarding child sexual abuse has shifted. Attitudes are changing, people are starting to understand the magnitude of the problem, and more adults are recognizing the importance of their role in preventing child sexual abuse,” says Lyndon Haviland, CEO of Darkness to Light. “We’re also grateful for our local partners, who’ve have supported us and have been instrumental in making change happen right here in our community.”

Since the Darkness to Light Stewards of Children® training effort began, the majority of youth serving organizations in Charleston have trained both staff and volunteers. Educators and school personnel in Berkeley, Charleston, and Dorchester County schools, many faith-based organizations, sports leagues, as well as individuals and parents have embraced prevention education and completed the Darkness to Light training.

Several local organizations and individuals provided tremendous support to our fledgling program. The Exchange Club of Charleston has been a key partner, providing initial funding for Darkness to Light’s local efforts to train adults to recognize and react responsibly to child sexual abuse. The partnership between Darkness to Light and the Exchange Club reflects one of the central tenets of the Exchange Club’s mission to prevent child abuse. As an organization that provides grant funds to various programs that serve children, the Exchange Club requires their grantees to be trained in child abuse prevention. This is a model for philanthropic policy we’d love all youth serving institutions to have.

“The Exchange Club of Charleston proudly supports Darkness to Light and D2L’s innovative and enduring child sexual abuse prevention program, Stewards of Children®,” says Chip McQueeny, Exchange Club of Charleston President. “The Exchange Club of Charleston shares D2L’s commitment to eradicating child abuse in our community, and this commitment has made our organization stronger through the years.”

In the lowcountry, over 40,000 individuals have been trained and at Darkness to Light we are excited by recent research that demonstrates the prevention education training is working, and making our communities safer for children. The tri-county area makes more reports of child sexual abuse than areas that have not received training. For children who live here that is good news. It means that previously-unrecognized cases of sexual abuse are being identified and reported. Community foundations and local organizations have made prevention education training in the tri-county possible by making the training available at no charge.

This past year, Darkness to Light conducted an initial study of teachers in Texas who were trained in Stewards of Children®. Results showed that Texas educators increased reports of previously-unrecognized child sexual abuse to the authorities by 283 percent. In the same period, more cases were substantiated, implying that more children received services in 2015 as a result of training. This research aligns with our local data which confirms that Stewards of Children® produces change that helps children. Every child has the right to a childhood free from child sexual abuse and we are invigorated by these results.

Darkness to Light has trained over one million individuals in all 50 states and in 17 countries across the globe. Our work started here in Charleston, and we are thankful to local leaders, donors and supporters for being a model community of prevention. We look forward to spreading the prevention message during the month of April. Our national PSA campaign will be kicked off this afternoon on the TLC network. TLC created a PSA for us to align with our theme for the month “Talk About Child Sexual Abuse.”  Please visit www.D2L.org to find information about our April campaign, which contains an interactive component that encourages people to share who they are talking to about child sexual abuse, and what they are talking about. Visit http://bit.ly/1USUKN3 to view the PSA.  You can also find us encouraging people to “Talk About Child Sexual Abuse” at the Marion Square Farmers Market and during our scheduled appearance on Lowcountry Live on April 20th.

About Darkness to Light

Founded in 2000, Darkness to Light (D2L) is a nonprofit organization committed to empowering people to prevent child sexual abuse. We are guided by our vision to create a world where child sexual abuse does not exist. We believe protecting children is an adult responsibility and that education is critical for prevention efforts, as well as a catalyst for larger cultural change. Our immediate focus is to make child sexual abuse prevention a national priority.

We work to end child sexual abuse by educating, raising awareness, sharing resources, and fostering a network of committed prevention advocates. Through our Stewards of Children®program, Darkness to Light has trained more than one million adults how to prevent, recognize, and react responsibly to child sexual abuse. Available in 17 countries and taught by a network of over 7,000 volunteer facilitators, it is the largest program of its kind in the world.