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Schools

New WED Program Addresses Child Abuse

In School Highlights for the week of May 23 through May 29, a look at a new curriculum program brought together by School Committee member Anita McGuire-Forcier.

This week I will highlight a very important issue for the city of Woonsocket and a program that the Woonsocket Education Department is providing to help address it.  The issue is child abuse and the program that School Committee Member Anita McGuire-Forcier has found to address it is Good-Touch/Bad-Touch®.  I have done some research and the statistics on sexual abuse are alarming.  I will provide the reader information and sources of support as well as a better understanding of education's role in eliminating this issue of great importance.

The Kids Count Fact Book identifies that the child abuse and neglect rate per 1000 children in Woonsocket is 27.3 per thousand which is nearly twice the state average of 13.3 per thousand.  Woonsocket's Child Abuse and Neglect rate is the second largest rate in the State of Rhode Island behind the City of Newport at 28.3 per thousand.  Of the child abuse and neglect rates, 4 % of those children are sexually abused.  This information can be seen on the Kids Count website at http://www.rikidscount.org/matriarch/documents/11_Factbook_Indicator_41.pdf.

Day One is a sexual assault and trauma center headquartered at 100 Medway St. Providence, Rhode Island.  Day One's mission is to reduce the prevalence of sexual abuse and violence, and to support and advocate for those affected by it.  Day One's vision is to create a community that is free of sexual abuse and violence through leadership and action that is responsive to the needs of the community.  On their web site, Day One provides the following alarming national statistics about the prevalence of sexual abuse and violence in the United States:

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1.  One in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused by the time they are 18.

2.  Among children, in 93% of the cases, the abuser is someone the child knows, often a relative or family friend.

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3.  One of every seven victims (or 14% of all victims) of sexual assault reported to law enforcement agencies were under the age of 6.

4.  One in three victims of sexual assault is under age 12.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families provided a national study of Child Maltreatment in 2007 and found that (7.6%) of child victims suffered sexual abuse.  Dr. Jim Hopper Ph.D. argues on his website that statistics on rates of child abuse and neglect are controversial.  This is due to the nature of the crime and most believe that sexual abuse is under-reported.

School Committee Member Anita McGuire-Forcier and her sister Dorothy McKenzie decided that they wanted to help their city eliminate sexual abuse.  They found Childhelp®, which exists to meet the physical, emotional, educational, and spiritual needs of abused and neglected children. Childhelp does so by focusing their efforts in the areas of treatment, prevention, and research. Childhelp Good-Touch/Bad-Touch hopes to eliminate child abuse by bringing prevention education to children and adults everywhere.  

The Good-Touch/Bad-Touch curriculum is positive and research-based.  It meets stringent educational criteria, has been field-tested with hundreds of children and over 6000 educators and is being used in most states.  It has on-going revisions to keep it fresh and current with research and evaluations. Educators value the use of pre and post-testing to determine children's learning. Parents respect that the Good-Touch/Bad-Touch teachers have been trained and follow the curriculum as designed.  Good-Touch/Bad-Touch prevention education includes information and discussions about child abuse, sexual abuse, sexual harassment and bullying of all types, internet safety, stranger danger rules, by-stander responsibilities and answers to questions about substance abuse.  

After being trained by Good-Touch/Bad-Touch as a certified curriculum facilitator, Mrs. McGuire-Forcier got financial support from the Woonsocket Rotary.  The Woonsocket Rotary volunteered to provide the $1,400 in necessary supplies and materials to get the program started in Woonsocket.  Anita and Dorothy have volunteered their time to present this information to the students of Woonsocket, when many other districts pay facilitators or train teachers to implement this supplement to their Health Curriculum. 

I visited a Good-Touch/Bad-Touch session last week and was very impressed with the video that explains to students about what to do in uncomfortable situations.  I also enjoyed the stories from the Good-Touch/Bad-Touch curriculum that Anita and Dorothy read to the students.  The discussion was not graphic and yet appropriate so that children of all ages learn to be safe. 

Sincerely,

 

Robert J. Gerardi, Jr., Ph.D.                         

Superintendent of Schools                             

Woonsocket Education Department  

"The solution to sexual violence in America is not more laws, more guns, more police, or more prisons. The solution to sexual violence is the acceptance of reality."


Gavin De Becker

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