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  • Emerging research: One in 10 teens has coerced sexual acts - JAMA Pediatrics

    08 Oct 2013 10:12 AM | Adrienne Hoffman-Lewis (Administrator)
    Read the article! Nicole Ostrow, the Star Tribune, October 7, 2013

    Read the report! Prevalence Rates of Male and Female Sexual Violence Perpetrators in a National Sample of Adolescents, M Ybarra & K Mitchell in JAMA Pediatrics

    About one in 10 young people have committed some type of sexual violence during their life, according to one of the first studies to look at young male and female perpetrators on a national level.

    Research published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics found about 10 percent of those 21 years old and younger said they committed an act of coercive sexual contact, including kissing or touching someone against the other person’s will, persuading someone to have sex with them when the person didn’t want to, attempted rape and completed rape.

    Monday’s study is one of the first to provide national estimates of young perpetrators of sexual violence. Researchers analyzed data from 1,058 people ages 14 to 21 who took part in the Growing Up With Media study from 2006 to 2012. 

    Perpetrators had more exposure to television, music, games and Internet sites that depict sexual and violent situations than those who didn’t commit the crimes, the authors found. About 40 percent of those who committed sexual violence did so for the first time by age 16, the paper said. Boys started younger but by ages 18 and 19, the number of male and female perpetrators were about equal. Females tended to have older victims, while males had younger victims, the researchers said.

  • How to talk to your preschooler about private parts - a guest blog for the Philly Inquirer by Dr. Janet Rosenzweig

    07 Oct 2013 3:47 PM | Adrienne Hoffman-Lewis (Administrator)
    Read the Full Article from the Philly Inquirer's online blog!

    Excerpt:     Many popular sex abuse prevention programs focus on teaching kids about "good touch-bad touch", but the words of one adult survivor of sexual abuse must be heard: "No one ever tells a child that a wrong touch might actually feel good!" In fact, molesters often count on a child not knowing this critical fact of life, and use a child's physical response to convince him or her that they were a willing participant. Similarly, a young man who does not know that his arousal came directly from his own brain may choose to 'blame' his arousal on someone and attempt to coerce them to relieve it, an all too familiar story heard from sexually aggressive adolescents. Parents of young children have an opportunity to set a foundation for sexual health and safety by helping make sure their child understands how their genitals work.

    Transmitting this message to kids can be as easy as doing nothing. Simply, a non-reaction to a baby handling their genitals gives the message that as parents we'll treat all body parts equally. As babies become toddlers, we can set boundaries around genital play, focusing on privacy, much the same way as we present potty-training; there's a time and place for everything. We can also begin to introduce the difference between privacy and secrecy; a child can learn that there are things she can do in private, but Mom and Dad need to know about them. Parents of toddlers can prepare to answer questions coming from a child who knows that he can ask his parents anything.

  • Institute of Medicine and National Research Council release "Confronting Commerical Sexual Exploitation and Sex Trafficking of Minors in the United States"

    26 Sep 2013 11:06 AM | Adrienne Hoffman-Lewis (Administrator)
    On September 25, 2013, the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council released "Confronting Commercial Sexual Exploitation and Sex Trafficking of Minors in the United States." This OJJDP-sponsored report examines current approaches to addressing commercial sexual exploitation and sex trafficking of children, identifies causes and consequences for both victims and offenders, and highlights recommendations to prevent, identify, and respond to these crimes.

    Report at a Glance
    • Report Brief (PDF, HTML)
    • Myths and Facts (PDF)
    • Briefing Slides (PDF)

  • NCMEC releases new Infographic explaining the 2M CyberTipline Reports!

    19 Sep 2013 2:17 PM | Adrienne Hoffman-Lewis (Administrator)
    View the infographic here!

    • New CDC Funding to Health Departments to Address Child Maltreatment Prevention

      11 Sep 2013 10:15 AM | Adrienne Hoffman-Lewis (Administrator)
      Announcing Newly-Funded Essentials for Childhood Grantees
      On September 10, 2013, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention awarded cooperative agreements to five state health departments for its new initiative Essentials for Childhood: Safe, Stable, Nurturing Relationships & Environments to Prevent Child Maltreatment.

      Health departments will receive funding for the next five years to support sustainable, multi-sectorial collective impact efforts that promote safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments to prevent child maltreatment in the following states:
      • California,
      • Colorado,
      • Massachusetts,
      • North Carolina, and
      • Washington
      Essentials for Childhood proposes strategies that promote relationships and environments that help children grow up to be healthy and productive citizens. Grantees will work on creating partnerships across multiple sectors to support child maltreatment prevention efforts.  In addition, they will identify, coordinate, monitor, and report on strategies implemented by multi-sector partners and establish state-level impact of these efforts.

      Next Step
      CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention will offer technical assistance to grantees and webinar trainings to all interested non-funded state health departments. Stay tuned for future webinar trainings on implementing Essentials for Childhood.

    • NCAC's CALio adds two new Professional Bibliographies!

      10 Sep 2013 2:58 PM | Adrienne Hoffman-Lewis (Administrator)
      The National Children's Advocacy Center added two new bibliographies its collection: Child Maltreatment: Victim to Victimizer? and Mandatory Reporting of Child Maltreatment to CALio.

    • Darkness to Light adopts new statistic on the prevalence of child sexual abuse: 1 in 10

      12 Aug 2013 10:00 AM | Adrienne Hoffman-Lewis (Administrator)
      Darkness to Light releases a new white paper: Estimating a Child Sexual Abuse Prevalence Rate for Practitioners: A Review of Child Sexual Abuse Prevalence Studies in August 2013 that supports a new prevalence statistic of 1 in 10.

    • NCAC announces new Professional Bibliography: Resilience among Victims of Child Maltreatment!

      06 Aug 2013 4:00 PM | Adrienne Hoffman-Lewis (Administrator)

      Professional Bibliographies: Resilience among Victims of Child Maltreatment, August 2013

      Numerous publications have reported on the long-term negative consequences of child maltreatment. However, researchers have also observed that there are children who appear resilient and do not display problem behaviors despite facing considerable adversity or trauma in childhood.  Resilience Among Victims of Child Maltreatment covers a wide variety of issues related to resilience in victims of child maltreatment across the lifespan. The literature covered comes from a variety of disciplines including psychology, psychiatry, social work, nursing, and education. The publications listed are books, book chapters, and journal articles published in English, 1982-2013. Links to unrestricted publications are provided. This bibliography is located in CALiO under the Evidence Based Practice in the Professional Bibliographies section under the number 27.

      The NCAC Professional Bibliographies series provides guides to the literature for practitioners working with children and adolescents who have been sexually, emotionally or physically abused. New bibliographies are added to this website on an irregular basis, as they are completed.

      These bibliographies provide references with abstracts to selected publications on the topic. Journal articles, books, chapters, and other publications that are reasonably available appear in the lists. In most cases, dissertations and audiovisual materials are not included.

    • ECPAT-USA Receives $1.5M 2013 Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize!

      06 Aug 2013 2:24 PM | Adrienne Hoffman-Lewis (Administrator)
      ECPAT, the leading global network of organizations dedicated to stopping the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), has been selected to receive the 2013 Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize of $1.5 million, the world's largest humanitarian prize. This is the 18th year for the Hilton Prize given by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation to an organization that is significantly alleviating human suffering.  

      The announcement was made today at a Consultation convened by ECPAT to develop an action plan to combat child trafficking, prostitution and pornography in Africa which has been growing due to increased tourism, family breakdowns, greater access to new technologies, unsafe migration and widespread poverty.

    • US Department of State releases Trafficking in Persons Report 2013. June 19, 2013.

      09 Jul 2013 4:20 PM | Adrienne Hoffman-Lewis (Administrator)

      US Department of State releases Trafficking in Persons Report 2013. June 19, 2013. 

      Excerpt: During this reporting period, a policy change at the Department of Justice (DOJ) allowed federal funding for victim services to support U.S. citizen victims of human trafficking as well as foreign national victims.

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