Journal of Child Sexual Abuse最新文献

Risk factors for child sex trafficking (CST) include substance use among familial traffickers, family violence, and poverty. Our research team will develop a novel intervention and prevention program based on these risk factors to reduce CST. We describe the design and methods we will use to evaluate our county-level cluster randomized control trial (cRCT) conducted in middle schools. Research aims include testing the combined effectiveness of 1) a mass media campaign targeting CST prevention and 2) an engaged-bystander training intervention to reduce CST. Fifty counties with >2 middle schools were randomized to the intervention (25 counties, 113 eligible schools) or attention control (25 counties, 101 eligible schools). Intervention counties will receive both a CST prevention-focused mass media campaign (billboards) and CST intervention training. The online CST engaged-bystander training will be offered to consenting middle school staff within intervention counties. Middle school staff in control counties will also receive online training focused solely on CST identification, referral, and reporting. To evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention versus control, consenting participants will be asked to complete pre- and post-training surveys, their assigned training, and follow-up surveys. Outcome measures include knowledge, attitudes, willingness, and self-efficacy to reduce CST by actions to identify children at risk, make referrals, and report CST. Implementing CST prevention and intervention training is anticipated to increase actions taken to reduce CST risk in intervention versus control counties. Reductions in CST risk could have direct relevance for national CST prevention programming.

The commercial sexual exploitation of youth (CSEY) is a critical public health crisis, with survivors often experiencing profound trauma, distrust of formal support systems, and ambivalence toward care. Given these challenges, professionals working with CSEY require specialized training to engage and support survivors effectively. This study aimed to develop, pilot, and evaluate a Motivational Interviewing (MI) training program tailored for professionals assisting CSEY. The goals of this study were to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of the MI-CSEY training in enhancing professional knowledge, attitudes, and skills in using MI techniques. The objectives included: (1) developing an MI training program specific to professionals working with CSEY, (2) piloting the program across seven geographical sites in Texas, and (3) evaluating its feasibility and impact on participant knowledge and self-efficacy. The MI-CSEY training was developed using formative evaluation methods, including focus groups with 11 service providers. A structured 14-hour training was implemented for 325 professionals, with knowledge and self-efficacy assessed using pre- and post-training surveys (MIKAT and MISSA). Results indicated that 75% of participants completed at least 80% of the training, with statistically significant improvements in MI knowledge (p = .026) and self-efficacy (p < .001). Participants reported high satisfaction, reinforcing the program's feasibility and potential for broader application. Future research should explore the long-term impact of MI-CSEY training on professional practice and survivor outcomes. Additionally, developing a fully remote training option would enhance accessibility, ensuring more professionals nationwide receive the skills needed to support this vulnerable population.

Project LIVE (Love, Inclusivity, Values, and Education) is a five-year Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funded project designed to evaluate the effectiveness of a school-based curriculum aimed at preventing the sexual exploitation of children (SEC) utilizing community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) methods. This paper describes challenges, successes, and lessons learned throughout the first two years of the project (Phase I), encompassing the open pilot trial. Framed by ecological systems theory (EST);, primary challenges at the microsystem (e.g. fictitious people trying to enroll in the study, difficulty matching anonymous surveys across time), mesosystem (e.g. misalignment across microsystems, differences in cultural and lived experience background between student participants and the research team, student resistance to participation), exosystem (e.g. personnel turnover), and macrosystem (e.g. state law changes requiring active guardian consent) are delineated. Active participation among research advisory board members, protocol adaptability, and collaboration and support across microsystems constitute major successes from Phase I.

Researching the risk and protective factors for child sexual abuse (CSA) is important for developing CSA-prevention methods. However, research regarding the changes in the significance of these factors over time is scarce. This current study examined the risk and protective factors for CSA in 2022 and compared them to those recorded in 2013. It was based on Finnish child victim surveys conducted in 2013 and 2022 with representative samples of Finnish sixth and ninth graders. Logistic regression models and average marginal effects were used to compare the risk factors between the samples. Data was used first in the context of separate samples and then combined to better establish the between-year differences by analyzing moderation effect of time. Being assigned female at birth, substance use, and having experienced physical abuse at home were the most focal variables in 2013 and 2022. Differences in risk factors were also found among samples. In 2022, the younger age, having witnessed physical domestic violence, spending time in public, and guardians' awareness of with whom their child spent time were no longer associated with CSA. Having special needs was associated with experiencing CSA in 2022 but not in 2013. This association seemed to be explained through moderative effects of time. Sixth grade and spending time in public were also moderated through time. These results suggest that changes in risk factors for CSA may occur over time. Therefore, updated research on such factors should be used to target at-risk children.

Sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth face a heightened risk of sexual violence, yet their experiences are often overlooked in mainstream frameworks of prevention and care. Access to appropriate support may be further limited by biased or uninformed professional attitudes toward both SGM identities and sexual victimization. This study explored how professionals in Israel understand and interpret sexual violence against SGM youth and how structural, psychological, and cultural factors shape vulnerability and barriers to healing. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with twenty professionals working with SGM youth in clinical, educational, and community settings. Three interconnected themes emerged: (1) Longing for Recognition, showing how unmet attachment needs and isolation drive SGM youth into unsafe digital spaces; (2) When Shame Meets Shame, illustrating how internalized stigma and identity-related shame complicate the recognition and disclosure of harm; and (3) Silenced Pain, highlighting how family rejection, institutional neglect, and intra-community denial contribute to systemic invisibility. Five subthemes, including digital risk-taking and the burden of double disclosure, further detailed these dynamics. Identity-based stigma, digital vulnerability, and institutional gaps converge to create complex pathways of harm. Trauma-informed, LGBTQ-affirming interventions are urgently needed across clinical, educational, and policy domains.

Ample research exists on sexual assault (SA) disclosure from the survivor perspective, yet studies with dyadic data, including their informal support providers (SPs), remain scarce. This is particularly true for substance-involved assaults which have been less studied. The present study of 29 survivors, 13 of whom were survivor-SP dyads, used interview data to address this gap. We examine how romantic partners, family, and friends experience SA disclosures from survivor and informal SP perspectives. SP-initiated disclosure themes include a) SPs prompting survivors to disclose after noticing mood/behavioral changes that gave them concern about the survivor, and b) SPs specifically disclosing their own past traumatic experience, which led to survivor SA disclosure. Survivor-initiated disclosure themes include a) survivor fear/anxiety related to disclosing due to fear of receiving negative reactions from SP, b) survivor disclosure prompting SP trauma disclosure, and c) positive and negative disclosure experiences affecting survivor perceptions of whether to disclose to other people. Implications are drawn for how to provide advice to survivors and SPs on improving disclosure experiences of substance-involved assaults, whether survivor or SP-initiated. Survivor anxiety regarding disclosure and feared negative social reactions are common, which requires improving societal culture to support victims and reduce social stigma via education on responding to survivors of diverse familial and cultural backgrounds. The role of survivor and SP disclosures of assault/trauma in facilitating/eliciting disclosures from the person they tell, and motivations for disclosing, are addressed to better understand mutual disclosure in dyadic relationships.

This study evaluated the proximal outcomes of the Sexual Communication and Consent program (SCC): a novel, tailored sexual assault (SA) prevention intervention implemented in the United States Air Force Basic Military Training from 2019 to 2020. Trainees received classroom instructor-led training and one of five tablet-delivered interventions that were tailored based on individual SA risk for perpetration, victimization, or revictimization assessed with a screening instrument. Using multilevel regression modeling, we assessed six proximal outcomes of SCC exposure in a sample of 3557 trainees with matched pretest and posttest data, analyzing results for both the overall sample and across the five SCC intervention subgroups. Within the overall sample, participation in SCC was associated with statistically significant increases in SA knowledge, consent knowledge, and self-efficacy to resist unwanted advances and statistically significant decreases in date rape attitudes and, unexpectedly, bystander intentions. Stratified analyses revealed consistent SA knowledge increases across subgroups, whereas consent knowledge and date rape attitudes were only significant in the male Healthy Relationships/Bystander Intervention subgroup. Self-efficacy to resist unwanted advances was significant in all victimization-focused subgroups except male Primary Victimization Prevention. There were no observed changes in protective dating behaviors in the overall sample or any intervention subgroup. Expanding the limited evidence-base of SA prevention programming in the US military, findings highlight the potential for tailored interventions that address SA risk factors for perpetration, victimization, or revictimization, to improve proximal outcomes known to be associated with SA incidence. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Child sexual abuse (CSA) remains a significant challenge for children in the United States. Despite this, research focused on identifying CSA among children aged 5 and under is underfunded compared to other child health issues and remains a gap in the field. This paper provides five recommendations to support early identification of CSA, including a central call for research to advance key areas such as forensic interview approaches, the use of medical histories, recognition of sexual behaviors, children's knowledge and emotional responses, and the development of trauma-informed screening protocols. The remaining focused recommendations emphasize the need to strengthen investigative protocols, build community-research partnerships, conduct comparative analyses to identify best practices, and develop innovative strategies for translating and disseminating findings - each reinforcing and amplifying the impact of targeted research investment.

Literature suggests that psychological interventions for individuals who perpetrated child sexual abuse (CSA) can be improved. Qualitative approaches are particularly valuable in this context, as they provide deeper insights into individual experiences and therapeutic processes, thereby informing the refinement of such interventions. Thus, semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine men convicted of CSA, who had completed a newly developed, structured, and manualized individual program based on schema therapy (i.e. the INSIGHT), delivered either in prison or in the community in Portugal. An inductive approach of thematic analysis was used to explore the men's perceptions of the treatment. We identified three themes: expectations before the beginning of the intervention, perceptions of the process of change, and views regarding the program and its impact. Overall, participants indicated that the INSIGHT Program contributed to favorable outcomes, further highlighting the relevance of targeting early maladaptive schemas to complement the intervention programs. Findings are discussed in terms of possible improvements to the program and to the psychological intervention with perpetrators of CSA in general.