PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — With many children spending less time in group settings these days, there are concerns among child advocates that the signs of child abuse may be going undetected in some cases.
In light of these concerns, the Chester County District Attorney's Office is encouraging community participation in efforts to reduce child sexual abuse.
"The Stewards of Children is a child sexual abuse prevention training program," said Charlotte Fabian, the new Chester County coordinator in charge of the program.
Adults are taught how to prevent, recognize, and react responsibly to child sexual abuse.
"Because 1 in 10 children will be abused by the age of 18 and that's a huge number," said Fabian. "90% of these children know their abuser so it's really important that all adults know how to prevent and recognize child sexual abuse."
"We want every adult in our county to be trained. We want every single adult to go through this training," she continued, adding that about 60% of abuse reports come from teachers. All teachers in both Chester County and the state are mandated reporters.
"So that means if they suspect child abuse or a child comes to them and says this is the bad thing that is happening, they have to report," she said. "With a lot of kids not being in schools, those teachers are not recognizing or seeing the signs of child abuse and they are not giving those reports... they are not there in front of the children."
Fabian said that it's necessary to teach children how to speak up if something bad happens to them. It's also important to teach adults how to recognize the signs of abuse. "And reporting is easy," she said. "You call in and you remain anonymous."
The next training session is a two-hour virtual workshop on February 19.
"The training will take adults through learning the facts about sexual abuse, learning how to minimize the opportunity, teaching people how to talk about it, talk about it with their kids, talk about it with other adults," she detailed.
The District Attorney's office will be offering additional training throughout the year. Registration is available through Chester County's website.
