In all my presentations on the topic of “prevention of child sexual abuse” I try to make the point that “prevention” means doing something before it happens, not after. And preventing something might mean taking those extra precautionary steps that might seem unnecessary.
Clearly the responsibility of prevention falls on the adults around the children, such as parents and family members, caregivers, close and distant relatives, and family friends. Responsibility also falls on the school officials such as teachers, administrators, school counselors, school social workers, school psychologists, school nurses, etc because the children are in school for a significant number of hours each day. All of these adults should go through appropriate training so they are able to detect any red flags.
It’s also important for other adults, who deal with children in the community, to be appropriately trained. This set of adults might include coaches, mentors, boys and girls club leaders, camp leaders, or any other youth organization and/or activities leaders. This is why well known organizations such as Big Brothers Big Sisters do an extensive background evaluation of prospective mentors before they are allowed to act as mentors for young children.
Any red flags detected by any of the adults around the children, should then be passed on to organizations such as the Child Protective Services.