Safe schools for teens: preventing sexual abuse of urban poor teens, proof-of-concept study - Improving teachers' and students' knowledge, skills and attitudes

The Impact of Training on Nurses' Attitudes Toward Reporting Child Sexual Abuse: a Pilot Study

The purpose of this project is to assess, for practicing pediatric nurses in the U.S., what is the impact of the Stewards of Children Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) program on their attitudes about reporting suspected CSA. A sample size of 32 nurses completed an online 2-hour continuing education course by Stewards of Children, with a pre/post-test survey. A modified 14-item version of the Teachers Reporting Attitudes Scale for Child Sexual Abuse (TRAS-CSA) was used to measure the nurses' attitudes before and after educational training. The surveys were analyzed to assess changes in attitudes using two-tailed sign tests. Nurses' commitment to reporting CSA is high, even before training. Nurses' confidence in the system of reporting and in the response of authorities related to CSA increased after taking the Stewards of Children online course. While these results are limited in strength by low sample sizes and some null changes, they indicate that trainings like the Stewards of Children course can positively impact nurses' attitudes towards reporting CSA, particularly with regards to confidence in reporting, and therefore warrant further investigation into CSA training for nurses and its effects.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40653-023-00581-7.

"Pay Attention! Pay Attention! Pay Attention!!!": The Pivotal Role of Educators and the Educational System as Experienced by Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse

Educational institutions and educators are significant in children's lives, and they have a crucial role in implementing policies, practices, and sexual education to enhance children's safety. Such policies and practices should be based on the voices of CSA survivors. This study explored child sexual abuse (CSA) survivors' viewpoints on their past experiences with educators and the educational system. A qualitative thematic approach was used to analyze 61 written testimonies collected in 2020-2021 by the Israeli Independent Public Inquiry on CSA. Two interrelated themes arose: (1) CSA survivors' retrospective perspectives of educators and the educational system's responses to signs of their CSA, described as ranging from abusive to life-saving. Specifically, they shared three types of responses: (a) harmful and hurtful; (b) dismissive and ignoring; and (c) accepting and attending. (2) The second theme described the survivors' messages to educators to promote constructive change. The survivors conveyed expectations that educators should play a central role in CSA prevention, detection, and intervention and, specifically, the need for educators to receive professional training, provide beneficial sexual education, and identify and respond to CSA. The findings promoted moving beyond individual-level interventions to focus on improving educational institutional and organizational cultures related to CSA in both national and international contexts.

Variables affecting the attitudes of teachers and school principals in reporting child abuse: An analysis of demographic characteristics, awareness, and self-efficacy

BACKGROUND

Teachers and school principals have an important role in the lives of children because they spend so much time with them, creating trusting relationships that make it easier to disclose abuse events. As a result, it's critical to look at the factors that influence teachers' and principals' attitudes towards reporting child abuse.

OBJECTIVE

The purpose of this study was to look at the factors that influence preschool teachers, primary school teachers, and school principals (N = 432) attitudes towards reporting child abuse in a Turkish sample.

PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING

The study comprised 432 participants, including preschool teachers, primary school teachers, and school principals. Seniority, educational levels, knowledge of abuse, awareness of abuse, and self-efficacy were among the criteria considered while analysing the participants.

METHODS

The study employed a survey model to assess the attitudes of the participants. Seniority, educational levels, knowledge of abuse, awareness of abuse, and self-efficacy were all considered predictors of attitudes towards reporting abuse.

RESULTS

The investigation found that elementary school teachers were more likely than other participants to report abuse. The branch of education, awareness of sexual abuse, and self-efficacy were found to be important predictors of attitudes towards reporting abuse in a hierarchical analysis. The complete study report will include specific effect sizes and their statistical significance.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings of this study contribute to a better understanding of the factors influencing teachers' and principals' attitudes towards reporting child abuse in Turkey. Primary school teachers had more favourable attitudes, with the education branch, awareness of sexual abuse, and self-efficacy emerging as important predictors.

A safe learning environment from the perspective of Laurea University of applied sciences safety, security and risk management students and staff

Safety and security (S&S) can be seen as a multidisciplinary topic of study where the audience varies from psychologists to engineers [1]. Safety can be approached from an objective perspective. However, there is also the subjective side of the same phenomenon [5, p. 31-35]. In this paper, it is argued that the S&S phenomenon has many dimensions, which is the main reason why the interview was used as the data collection method here. This makes it possible to describe and uncover the multiple aspects of a safe learning environment. Interviews were analysed by using content analysing methods. All the interviewees had an S&S background and represented different professional perspectives, e.g., police officers or nurses. The main finding of this study is that the social skills, teaching tools, resources, information flow, and S&S knowledge of the staff have a major impact on the safety of learning environments. According to the literature review and interviews done in this work, schools should have a risk-based comprehensive safety and security management system in place. One can assume that such a system combined with effective leadership will lead to a safer school environment. This paper argues that if an organisation concentrates only on one aspect of safety or even if they have a comprehensive risk-based S&S system in place but there is no leadership that appreciates safety as a core value, it is hard for the organisation to create a safe school environment with a satisfactory safety level for its users.

Child abuse prevention education policies increase reports of child sexual abuse

BACKGROUND

It is well supported that engaging in prevention education increases a child's awareness of child sexual abuse. However, due to methodological limitations, prior research has yet to determine whether this knowledge leads to increases in reporting or substantiation of child sexual abuse.

OBJECTIVE

We examined whether state mandates for school-based prevention education correlate to changes in reports of child sexual abuse.

METHODS

We used a quasi-experimental design to investigate the association between child sexual abuse report rates from 2005 to 2019 and presence of state legislation mandating school-based child sexual abuse prevention curricula. Child sexual abuse report data were obtained from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System child files. We focused on reports for school-aged children ages 5-17. Data on state laws on prevention curricula were extracted from enoughabuse.org, Prevent Child Abuse America, ErinsLaw.org, and directly from published legislation.

RESULTS

State education mandates were associated with an increase in the incidence of child sexual abuse reports made by education personnel (IRR = 1.22, 95 % CI, 1.01-1.48). Policies were not associated with increases in incidence of child sexual abuse reports made by non-education personnel (IRR = 1.08, 95 % CI, 0.95-1.22) or decreases in likelihood that any given report was confirmed (OR = 1.00; 95 % CI, 0.90-1.12).

CONCLUSIONS

There is moderate evidence that adopting state mandates for child sexual abuse prevention education may increase disclosures and reporting of child sexual abuse by school-based sources. There is no evidence that mandates decrease the validity of child sexual abuse reporting by school-based sources.

Knowledge and Myths About Child Sexual Abuse in Mexican Women

Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a terrible type of maltreatment that occurs in all countries and social statuses, but due to the shame and taboo that it creates, it is still riddled with myths and false beliefs that make it difficult for the population and the authorities to adequately determine its prevalence. The objective of this work was to explore what Mexican women know about CSA. The participants were Mexican women (N = 499) who filled out a questionnaire comprising ten items referring to truths and myths about CSA, indicating their degree of agreement with them on a Likert scale. The results showed that although Mexican women have quite adequate knowledge about CSA, they still hold wrong beliefs about the child's feelings toward the abuser or the child victim becoming an adult abuser. Likewise, differences were found in the myths and truths about CSA held by women under 40 and over 40 years of age.

Teaching Socio-Emotional Competencies Among Primary School Students: Improving Conflict Resolution and Promoting Democratic Co-existence in Schools

Teaching socio-emotional skills among primary school students is the key to creating a climate of cooperation in classrooms and reducing disruptive or aggressive behaviors among students. The primary goal of this research is to present an educational proposal for imparting socio-emotional competencies among primary school students. We attempt to impart socio-emotional competencies based on: (1) fostering self-knowledge, self-esteem, and respect for others among students; (2) developing behaviors that allow them to perceive and express feelings and self-regulating emotions; and (3) developing assertive communication skills aimed at improving conflict resolution. This program has been designed in such a way that it is implemented throughout the academic year by organizing bi-monthly sessions of 45 min each, held until the completion of 15 sessions. The sample consists of 100 students in the third grade, with the control and experimental groups having an equal number of students (50 each). The instruments used for this research are: (a) BarOn Emotional Quotient Inventory (Youth Version [BarOn EQ-i:YV]): used for measuring emotional and social functioning; (b) the Matson Evaluation of Social Skills with Youngsters (MESSY): used for assessing social skills; and (c) Questionnaire for the Assessment of School Violence in Preschool and Primary School Questionnaire. To check the effectiveness of the educational intervention, a quasi-experimental design, along with pretest-posttest control group design, is used in accordance with the general linear model. Its effectiveness is also checked using repeated measures analysis of variance. The results show that the program is useful in preventing violent behaviors in the educational field and promoting the development of socio-emotional skills among third grade students. Finally, the applicability of the program to other educational contexts is discussed to enhance students' personal development and decrease the levels of violence found in primary school.

The Influence of Personality Traits on School Bullying: A Moderated Mediation Model

We recruited 1,631 middle and high school students to explore the relationship between personality traits and school bullying, and the moderated and mediating roles of self-concept and loneliness on this relationship. Results showed that (1) neuroticism had a significant positive predictive effect on being bullied, extroversion had a significant negative predictive effect on being bullied, and agreeableness had a significant negative predictive effect on bullying/being bullied; (2) loneliness played a mediating role between neuroticism and bullied behaviors, extroversion and bullying behaviors, and agreeableness and bullying/bullied behaviors; (3) self-concept played a moderating role on the mediation pathway of loneliness on neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness and bullying behaviors. Therefore, to reduce the frequency of school bullying among adolescents, we should not only reduce their levels of loneliness but also improve their levels of self-concept.

Combating homophobia, lesbophobia, biphobia and transphobia: A liberating and subversive educational alternative for desires

The repression of human sexuality began anew in the twentieth century with a strengthening of patriarchal conceptions that pathologised sexual preferences, such as homosexuality, lesbianism and bisexuality, and medicalised transsexuality. Our educational approaches based on action research have reduced violence and empowered teenagers – girls and boys – and groups of teachers in different countries of the European Union. The diversification of assessment tools has resulted in an improved evaluation of processes and results. As a result, a high percentage of violence has been eliminated, accompanied by a scaling up of prevention and greater respect for sexual diversity. Critical-emancipatory action research is a viable alternative, as is the empowerment of men, not only of women.