Last week I had the exciting opportunity to speak at the Kentucky School Counselors Association conference in Lexington, KY. The topic of my presentation was “Prevention of child sexual abuse – role of a school counselor”. This presentation was based on my second book which elaborates on the challenges in preventing child sexual abuse. In this presentation I focus more on how school counselors might be able to intervene to prevent a possibly abusive situation. School counselors typically have a good relationship with a lot of children and can at times be in a position to be able to help if a situation arises. The presentation was very well received by the school counselors with a lot of follow-up comments and discussions.
One of the challenges I describe in my book is that our systems do not often respond adequately in a preventive situation, which means doing something “before” it happens, not after. If a school counselor detects a possibly abusive situation and reports to the “systems”, it is more likely that the systems will take some preventive action. In other words, a school counselor’s report will likely receive more attention than a report from an ordinary citizen.
Today I am getting ready to make the same presentation at the Washington School Counselors Association conference in Seattle, WA. I am looking forward to another exciting session with engaging follow-up discussions.