Nobody can say for sure how many schools and youth-serving institutions are introducing sexual violence prevention programming in the wake of recent high-profile cases, but we know the number is growing. David Lee, of the nonprofit PreventConnect, says on this front he feels “hopeful.” Fueled by awareness, outrage, and grief, and also by threats of insurance loss and lawsuits—$60 million, Penn State’s penalty; 30 to 60 years, Sandusky’s sentence; $2.2 billion, the amount The Catholic Church has spent litigating with more than 100,000 U.S. survivors—individuals at youth-serving institutions across the country are flight-testing an emerging array of policies and programs that appear to be helping.
Some implement in crisis—Boston’s Catholic schools, for instance, adopted Committee for Children’s Talking about Touching, a pre-K-3 program taught in 25,000 schools nationwide, after revelations of widespread abuse there. Others under law, as is the case in Vermont, where landmark 2009 legislation, called Act One, mandates that all schools implement primary prevention as part of comprehensive health education. In many schools, the topic remains taboo. In many schools, post-trauma crisis is still the norm, and the immediate needs are so great that looking upstream to prevention could be called a luxury. But more and more, Lee says, schools and organizations like the Ray School or The Unitarian Universalist Association, recognized for its Our Whole Lives curriculum, make changes before there are headlines.
Photo credit: Axel, Flickr
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