Building a New Narrative on Child Sexual Abuse Prevention

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This month, a growing community of researchers, policy makers, and front-line practitioners is celebrating a Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Month like none other.

It’s been 41 years since April was proclaimed in the United States as the month to advance the more general cause of child abuse prevention, and over time, the focus was broadened to sexual assault. The specific emphasis on the prevention of child sexual abuse—especially perpetration prevention—is still relatively new, reflecting a growing body of research and practice showing that prevention of child sexual abuse is possible and that the most effective, humane way to deal with the multi-generational trauma of child sexual abuse is to stop it before it occurs.

Prevention, healing, and justice are all essential components of a comprehensive approach to tackling child sexual abuse. Right now, the lion’s share of resources go to important work for justice, with not nearly enough to support survivors and pursue strategies to prevent future abuse. We don’t need to redistribute existing resources, we need more resources.

That balance is beginning to shift. And none too soon because it leaves some deeply important questions unanswered:

• As long as resources devoted to child sexual abuse programming are inadequate and devoted mainly to interventions after the fact, what opportunities for better health and prosperity are we letting slip through our fingers?
• What will it take to deliver adequate funding for prevention and additional support for survivors while continuing to hold people who offend accountable?
• How can institutions, policymakers, and decision-makers do a better job of understanding the different circumstances and drivers of perpetration and develop tailored interventions to prevent abuse?

It’s a tough challenge that runs headlong into some of our society’s deepest assumptions and fears. But we’re making progress. This year, Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Month is an opportunity to celebrate a decade of notable, sometimes spectacular success. And, even more importantly, to lay the foundation for another 10 years of hard work to bring prevention to the top of the policy and action agenda on child sexual abuse.

In late June, the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse will be convening colleagues and partners from across the United States and around the world to share the latest advances in the effort to stop child sexual abuse in its tracks. Some of the most significant emerging storylines include:

• The understanding that we can’t arrest our way out of the problem of child sexual abuse, in the words of Simon Bailey, former child protection lead with the UK National Police Chiefs’ Council
• An update on an ambitious global initiative to rigorously evaluate promising prevention interventions
• A report on the successful steps that youth-serving organizations are taking to keep children and young adults safe and what more they can do
• Insights on how a landmark child maltreatment study from Australia can inform the future of child sexual abuse prevention
• A frank conversation with the director and producer of Great Photo, Lovely Life, a critically acclaimed Home Box Office (HBO) documentary that chronicled one family’s history with child sexual abuse
• Reflections from Moore Center founders Dr. Stephen and Mrs. Julia Moore on 10 years of progress in the prevention of child sexual abuse and what lies ahead

As the public narrative on child sexual abuse shifts and awareness of prevention becomes more widespread, we so often hear the same question from survivors and their families:

How would life have been different if we’d know then what we know now about how child sexual abuse can be prevented?

It’s a wrenching question that we can only answer with compassion and support for anyone who’s been there and a determined commitment to bring prevention to the center of child sexual abuse research and practice.

We’ve learned so much and progressed so far over the last decade. We still have a lot of ground to cover. But we know enough to say definitively that prevention can make a decisive difference in people’s lives. And we’re just getting started.