TY - JOUR
T1 - Responsible Behavior with Younger Children
T2 - Examining the Feasibility of a Classroom-Based Program to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse Perpetration by Adolescents
AU - Ruzicka, Amanda E.
AU - Assini-Meytin, Luciana C.
AU - Schaeffer, Cindy M.
AU - Bradshaw, Catherine P.
AU - Letourneau, Elizabeth J.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development under grant HD083704-01A1 [Elizabeth J. Letourneau, Principal Investigator]
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Taylor & Francis.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a preventable public health problem typically addressed with either after-the-fact interventions or prevention programs focused on teaching children to protect themselves and report abuse. Such responses do little to prevent CSA victimization, leading to calls for prevention efforts targeting individuals most at risk of perpetrating CSA. These individuals include young adolescents, who are prone to making mistakes and bad decisions when it comes to their sexual behaviors. To begin to address this call to action, we developed Responsible Behavior with Younger Children (RBYC), a universal school-based prevention program to provide sixth and seventh grade students (and their parents and educators) with the knowledge, skills, and tools to prevent engaging younger children in sexual behaviors. School-based CSA prevention interventions are often met with feasibility and acceptability concerns including that (a) people at risk of offending are impervious to prevention efforts, (b) schools do not have the resources to take on additional programs, and (c) the content is too sensitive for educators, parents, and students. The goal of this article is to describe how the RBYC program was developed to address these concerns. We also summarize data on the feasibility of the RBYC program obtained from focus groups with educators, parents, and students during the development of the program and interviews with educators after a pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT). Feedback received during program development and after the pilot RCT suggests that RBYC is relevant, salient, palatable, and feasible for implementation in middle schools.
AB - Child sexual abuse (CSA) is a preventable public health problem typically addressed with either after-the-fact interventions or prevention programs focused on teaching children to protect themselves and report abuse. Such responses do little to prevent CSA victimization, leading to calls for prevention efforts targeting individuals most at risk of perpetrating CSA. These individuals include young adolescents, who are prone to making mistakes and bad decisions when it comes to their sexual behaviors. To begin to address this call to action, we developed Responsible Behavior with Younger Children (RBYC), a universal school-based prevention program to provide sixth and seventh grade students (and their parents and educators) with the knowledge, skills, and tools to prevent engaging younger children in sexual behaviors. School-based CSA prevention interventions are often met with feasibility and acceptability concerns including that (a) people at risk of offending are impervious to prevention efforts, (b) schools do not have the resources to take on additional programs, and (c) the content is too sensitive for educators, parents, and students. The goal of this article is to describe how the RBYC program was developed to address these concerns. We also summarize data on the feasibility of the RBYC program obtained from focus groups with educators, parents, and students during the development of the program and interviews with educators after a pilot randomized controlled trial (RCT). Feedback received during program development and after the pilot RCT suggests that RBYC is relevant, salient, palatable, and feasible for implementation in middle schools.
KW - Child sexual abuse
KW - feasibility
KW - primary prevention
KW - school-based programs
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U2 - 10.1080/10538712.2021.1881858
DO - 10.1080/10538712.2021.1881858
M3 - Article
C2 - 33554776
AN - SCOPUS:85100806381
SN - 1053-8712
VL - 30
SP - 461
EP - 481
JO - Journal of Child Sexual Abuse
JF - Journal of Child Sexual Abuse
IS - 4
ER -