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Prevention of sexual violence against girls and boys in primary school

12.12.2002 | Schmidt-Ndasi Daniela (Germany)

a research report, child-protection centre Oldenburg, 1999. The study presents the results of the evaluation of the project for prevention "Sexual violence against girls and boys in primary school", which was developed and carried out by the child-protection centre Oldenburg. The prevention project was tested at four primary schools in the area including 12 classes with 259 children (120 girls, 139 boys). The faculty 1for pedagogics at the Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg had agreed to give scientific assistance and to evaluate the project. The concept of school-work aimes to involve girls, boys, teachers and parents actively in a longterm, confidence-building process and to embed the topic "Sexual violence against girls and boys" in the framework-topic "Me is We, You is You and that is We", orientated on self-confidence and life-competence. The prevention work is carried out in the class by a male and female qualified collaborator in collaboration with the teacher. In case of suspicion or disclosure close cooperation with the psychological clinic and shelter of the child-protection centre was possible. There is an offer to all pupils to talk to the collaborators of the project individually about personal problems. There is a variety of different offers to the parents as well (individual counselling, parent-teacher-collaborator meetings, mother-teacher-coolaborator meetings, father-teacher-collaborator meetings). The work with girls, boys, parents and teachers takes several weeks, divided in the phase of preparation, realization and evaluation. Before work with children can be started, it is necessary to work with the adults in consent to the school principals. It starts with a training for all teachers, to give information an the topic and give guidelines what to do in case of suspicion. Then the first meeting with all parents will take place, followed by the concrete work with the pupils (5 weeks, all in all around 35 hours in class). Part of this work is done in gender-specific groups. During this phase the collaborators offer individual counselling for parents and reflection on the process with the teacher. The end of this phase is marked by a second parent-collaborator meeting and a second training for the scholl staff There have been three main questions for the study: a) Can be profed, that the project is leading to an increase of knowledge about prevention among children and parents? b) Are there any undesirable side effects, especially an increase of anxiety, caused by the way the problem of sexual violence against girls and boys in primary school is approached? c) How do the participating children and their parents judge the prevention work after the event? Results: a) Their was an significant increase in knowledge about the main messages of prevention among the children (How to say "No"; questions of rigths of children; question of guilt; to ask for help; to trust one´s intuition; secrets; unpleasant touches). Whether this knowlege is leading to competent reactions in real dangerous situations can not be profed. But 20% of the parents indicated a more self-confident behavour of their children. 30-40% pupils in each class agreed to the offer of an counselling interview for daily problems, what can be taken as an evidence for their ability to call on help. 25-33% pupils of the controll group gave the opinion, to be victim of sexual violence is the child´s fault. The prevention project group denied this opinion signifikant. It is not to prove, that there was a change concerning the topics "my body, touches and emotions". These aspects have not been represented sufficient in the questionnaire. b) Teachers, parents and collaborators could not discover an increase of anxiety among the pupils. There have been individual cases, leading to direct cooperation with the psychological clinic of the child-protection centre. But the symptom of anxiety was discovered as not a result of the prevention project but of previous problems coming to the surface now. All prevention work has to assure help in this cases to be expected. The study can´t give a statement about an increasing sense of shame or a negativ impact on sexual development, since the questions referred to did not give evidence. c) All in all the pupils experienced and assessed the project very positiv, what is going with the assessment of the collaborators. The level of information among the parents about the topic of child abuse and its prevention was relatively high, so in future there could be given less importance to this part of the project. Instead the parents need ideas and practical training in how to get into a dialog with their children about the topic. Published by Germany, DJI Deutsches Jugend Inst. (Munich) , Schmidt-Ndasi Daniela (Germany) Created 12.12.2002