Mothers Attitudes Toward Child Sexual Abuse Prevention in Schools: A Preliminary Examination

Maureen C Kenny; Alena Prikhidko

doi:10.1007/s40653-021-00361-1

Mothers Attitudes Toward Child Sexual Abuse Prevention in Schools: A Preliminary Examination

J Child Adolesc Trauma. 2021 May 14;15(2):297-306. doi: 10.1007/s40653-021-00361-1. eCollection 2022 Jun.

Authors

Maureen C Kenny¹, Alena Prikhidko¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Counseling, Recreation and School Psychology, Florida International University, Miami, FL 33199 USA.

Abstract

Providing school-based child sexual abuse (CSA) prevention programs ensures that the majority of children will participate in programming. Since many parents may feel ill equipped to have such discussions with their children, programs offered in education settings can bring awareness to this issue. A sample of mothers (N = 268) from across the United States completed an online survey related to their experiences with and attitudes toward school-based CSA prevention programs. Most mothers (70%) had no exposure to prevention programs during their childhood, but the majority (95%) had a positive attitude toward programming for their children. Most mothers believed that offering CSA prevention in schools was important and could provide a safety net. Mothers desired programming that was age appropriate, involved parents and was activity based. These results can help inform schools' prevention programming.

Keywords: Child sexual abuse prevention; Mothers; Parent-child sexuality communication; Sexual abuse.