Author(s): Johns Hopkins University – Bloomberg School of Public Health
- Elizabeth J. Letourneau, PhD – Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse – Department of Mental Health – Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
- Luciana C. Assini-Meytin, PhD – Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse – Department of Mental Health – Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
- Keith L. Kaufman, PhD – Department of Psychology – Portland State University
- Ben Mathews, PhD – School of Law – Queensland University of Technology
- Donald Palmer, PhD – Graduate School of Management – University of California, Davis
Published: Dec. 9, 2020
Report Intro/Brief:
“This Desk Guide provides senior leaders of national, regional, and local YSOs with new guidance and actionable options for preventing and addressing CSA. This guidance is based on the principal that is well established with many, perhaps most YSOs—specifically, that YSOs, regardless of their specific missions, are accountable for two fundamental goals: (1) to keep children safe and (2) to place children on a path to a successful and satisfying life, with better outcomes for education, employment, mental health, physical health, and social formation.
This Desk Guide aims to provide a theoretical framework within which to place strategies for preventing and addressing CSA, overarching goals to be attained, and examples of strategies by which these goals might be achieved.
Our working team reviewed hundreds of best practice recommendations, and we identified more than a thousand elements of actual current YSO prevention (or “safety”) practices. We believe most current and recommended practice is or could be designed to address just eight overarching goals:
- Focus on child wellbeing and safety above all else;
- Make training a cornerstone of YSO practices;
- Increase the monitoring of adult-child interactions in YSO programs;
- Collaborate with children and parents;
- Identify safety concerns and generate solutions to specific organizational CSA safety risks;
- Increase YSO evaluation and accountability;
- Address youth sexual behavior; and
- Strengthen human resource management.
In the remainder of this Desk Guide, we define each of these goals, identify key questions to help guide each goal at the local YSO level, and provide examples of how these goals are currently or could be addressed. We hope that leaders of YSOs will use this information as a foundation for creating tailored prevention and response protocols that are specific to their own organizations and responsive to their own organizational missions.”
>>> CLICK HERE to see all of Youth Today’s REPORT LIBRARY
