Program Goals

Child sexual abuse is a serious problem within our society and occurs more frequently than people realize. In order to protect children, it is important to understand what child sexual abuse is, how it happens and how to recognize behaviour that may signal a child is in distress. While this issue may bring about a certain level of fear or discomfort for professionals working with children, it is important that it be brought to the forefront. We must begin talking about these issues.

The goals of the Teatree Tells: A Child Abuse Prevention Kit are:

• To possibly prevent child sexual abuse.
• To intervene with any suspected abuse as soon as possible.
• To increase knowledge about child sexual abuse.
• To increase competence at handling child disclosures.

Did you know?

1. Part of being prepared is understanding what constitutes child sexual abuse. Sexual abuse can range from the most obvious contact offenses such as touching or fondling genitalia to exposure to sexually explicit material. Child pornography images fall within the continuum of non-contact to contact sexual abuse. There are countless instances where an offender is involved in creating, possessing, making available or distributing child pornography; all of which involve the sexual abuse and exploitation of children.
2. Child pornography is a picture of a real child being sexually abused and for it to be created a child must be sexually assaulted or posed deliberately in a sexualized manner. It is never accidental – its creation is measured and intentional. Professionals working with children need to be aware of the connection between child pornography and sexual abuse, and educate children about secrecy tied to picture taking. The impact on the child victim is compounded when his/her abuse is placed on the Internet – a very public and permanent forum.
3. According to Statistics Canada, 61% of all victims of sexual abuse reported to police are children under 18 years of age (Juristat, 2003). Data from Cybertip.ca shows that 82% of analyzed child pornography websites contain images of children under 12 years of age being sexually abused; with 57% of these children under 8 years of age.