Child Abuse Prevention Month

April is Child Abuse Prevention Month. Building awareness of abuse prevention strategies and strengthening the coalitions that work to ensure the safety of children is the purpose of this national month of recognition.

Springtime Self-Care! Strategies and Discussion with Colleagues

In this webinar, Janet presents findings from her survey on professionals working with people who have abused, highlighting key self-care aspects. Arliss then discusses resources for busy professionals to enhance self-care, while David shares insights on integrating self-care into professional settings based on his practice experience.

Counseling Clients with Neopaganistic Worldviews 

A growing number of clients in treatment follow different spiritual paths than the religious practices most familiar to their treatment and supervision providers. This sets the stage for possible misunderstandings and tensions between the client and the members of treatment or supervisory team. While these worldviews can be puzzling to therapists and other professionals, Mr. Reeder explains how they can be understood in the context of counseling.

Working with Christian Beliefs in Treatment

There has been little guidance on integrating Christian beliefs with the material covered in most treatment programs for individuals who have sexually abused. Yet the topic is of vital importance to many clients in treatment. In fact, it is common for people convicted of sexual crimes to have questions about spirituality in the wake of their arrest and legal processing.

In this webinar, the panelists address topics related to religious objections to participating in treatment, discussing how the goals of treatment mesh with individual beliefs and how professionals can best interface with their clients’ faith systems.

Using the Good Lives Model with Adolescents and Young Men Who Have Harmed Others

This training will provide information on applying the Good Lives Model (GLM) in work with adolescents whose behaviors have caused harm to others (including sexual and non-sexual violence). The GLM is a strengths-based rehabilitation practice framework that augments the risk, need, and responsivity principles of effective correctional intervention through its focus on assisting clients to develop and implement meaningful life plans that are incompatible with future offending. Originally developed as a rehabilitation framework for use with adults who have harmed others, this workshop focuses on how the GLM—when properly adapted—can be used with adolescents and young men.

Building Prevention Teams to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse

Adults are responsible for protecting children from sexual assault and incest. Children can learn protection skills as well, and it’s important that they do. However, it is up to adults to protect children, not for children to have to protect themselves.

Feather Berkower has long worked to give adults accurate information about child sexual assault and incest so that they can prevent, recognize, and act responsibly if they witness it. This webinar interview explores Feather’s work in this area and what caregivers can do to raise children with healthy boundaries and safe bodies. She explains how people can come together as prevention teams and discusses her work in building homes and communities that are off-limits to child sexual assault.

Parents are welcome as well as professionals!

Supporting Survivors Through Restorative Justice

Countless survivors of sexual harm and violence never contact any professional services or law enforcement mechanisms. This doesn’t mean these survivors are not yearning for healing for themselves and accountability for their abusers; rather, it is often the fear of the collateral consequences on their families and communities that keeps them silent. sujatha baliga (sujatha spells her name uncapitalized) believes restorative justice can meet these hidden needs at the family and community level, without reliance on systems of punishment.