Child s*xual abuse prevention is difficult under the best of circumstances. But if you are a survivor of childhood abuse, that path may – at times – seem too painful to navigate.
In her Beyond Surviving podcast, Rachel Grant – a child sexual abuse recovery coach – and I dig in to practical ways to minimize the risk of abuse, how to recognize the warning signs of abuse, and how to respond to a disclosure, discovery, or suspicion of abuse. And, how this plays out with someone who has experienced childhood trauma themselves.
I recently got a text from a friend of mine. (We’ll call him Sebastian.)
I practically did a jig when I read Sebastian’s text. He and his wife are long-time friends…almost like family…so they know what I do for a living and we have had many conversations over the years. When I called him to talk about his question, he said, “See…I have learned some things from you through the years!”
SIDEBAR:
Conversations matter! You hear me repeatedly ask (beg?) people to talk about child sexual abuse prevention. Now you can see why.
It creates community and reduces a sense of isolation that can come with youth protection (all the cool kids are doing it!);
It shows anyone who has ill-intent with your children that this is not something your family sweeps under the carpet; and
We can actually learn from each other!
Back to the story…
“How do I communicate with this high school girl?” I honestly felt the angst in his question.
Let’s keep it simple…include her mother. “Of course!” exclaimed Sebastian. “Of course!”
Text the girl and ask for her mom’s cell number so you can create a group text. Then take a screenshot of said text so you can show (if ever needed) the content of your only 1:1 conversation with her.
Then start the group text explaining that because ‘girl’ is a minor, you’d like to include her mother in all conversations. That way the girl, her mom and you are all on the same page moving forward.
Simple, right?
Not so much. You have no idea how much pushback I get on this policy/practice from organizations and coaches. Nobody ever has a good reason not to do this, other than…it’s not how they have always done it.
There shouldn’t be any out-of-program communication between coaches and minor athletes, and if there is program-related communication, make sure it isn’t 1:1. Include the whole team or your assistant coach or a parent.
SIDEBAR:
If you are uncomfortable asking this question out-of-the blue, I have a few suggestions for you; feel free to pick whichever one most resonates with you.
Please don’t be. Your most important job is protecting your child; not making a sports organization administrator comfortable.
So? For some people, these conversations never become ‘comfortable’ so we have to figure out how to step through our discomfort to do what we need to do for our child.
The best organizations have such a policy and are happy to answer this question.
If they don’t have a policy on coach and minor athlete communication? Then they probably don’t have any athlete protection policies & procedures, which is an entirely separate blog. This is the opportunity to let them know this is important to you and it’s something you will look for next season or next enrollment.
And, parents…whether the organization has this policy or not, please make it a family rule that if an adult ever reaches out to your child, they are expected to loop in mom or dad. They don’t have to make a big deal about it; they just add you to the communication. This should be the rule if your child is 6 or 16 years old.
When you’re ready, let me know when I can help your family, organization or community protect our youth with Child Sexual Abuse Prevention & Response Training or Youth Protection Policies & Procedures.
I promised that, each week, I was going to break down ONE LESSON LEARNED from the Larry Nassar tragedy. That was on February 8th. I’m certain each of you have been checking your in-boxes in great anticipation since February 15th, so thank you for your patience and grace. 😉
At the end of January 2022, Child USA’s Game Over Commission to Protect Youth Athletes released a 128-page “Case-Study of Systemic Abuse in Sports Perpetrated by Larry Nassar.” The Commission’s stated purpose was to answer the singular question:
How could every institution and person who should have protected girls from Larry Nassar fail so miserably?
They believed that the failings that allowed Larry Nassar to sexually abuse upwards of 500 girls over two decades under the guise of medical treatment for athletic injuries, were universal enough that their reveal could help protect our next generations of youth athletes.
As one of the largest sexual abuse cases in sports history, it’s easy to slip into, “that wouldn’t happen here.” But you see… it can. Because when you break it all the way down, this is what we have:
A child athlete was sexually abused by a staff person who this child, their family, and their gym owners and staff trusted.
The report tells us that there were reports of abuse and complaints about Larry Nassar’s behavior dating back to even before he graduated from medical school. But they were minimized, overlooked and even actively buried because of his rising star as a trainer for elite gymnasts, many of whom were Olympics-bound.
The lesson?
Child protection must be consistent and constant. No one gets a pass. No one.
We must move away from the idea of protecting our children against a certain person or a certain type of person and move toward child protection practices becoming a consistent, constant and normal part of our lives. This way, when a child discloses abuse or an adult is uncomfortable with someone’s behavior, we don’t have to make a personal judgement call whether this person could ever do anything like that.
LESSON #2
While many people who received complaints on Larry Nassar were 100% intent on protecting his reputation, and by extension, their own reputation, there was a theme in the report of well-intentioned people who did not know what to do with the information they were given.
Which leads us to Lesson #2:
Organizations have a legal and moral responsibility to make sure their staff and volunteers know and understand their state’s mandatory child abuse reporting law.
AND, parents have a legal and moral responsibility to learn and understand their state’s mandatory child abuse reporting law.
It can be confusing and messy.
First of all, each state’s law is different regarding who is legally required to report abuse, where the abuse should be reported, and how long a person has to make this report. As if that wasn’t confusing enough…
Any amateur youth sports organization that participates in interstate or international competition, and anyone the organization authorizes to interact with minors.
If your amateur youth sports organization is mandated by the Safe Sport Act and not in compliance?
That could mean criminal charges to the organization’s leadership, including the board of directors. Possible. Criminal. Charges.
Does your sports organization participate in interstate or international competition? If yes, do you know if it is in compliance with the federal Safe Sport Act? The answer needs to be nothing other than YES if you are a coach, administrator, board member, volunteer or parent.
I’ve written several articles on the Safe Sport Act, so feel free to check here for more specific information.
If your youth sports organization does not participate in interstate or international competition, does every coach, volunteer, administrator, board member and parent know your state’s reporting law? If not, you can find it here.
Look…I know you think child sexual abuse prevention and response is important or you would be doing anything other than reading my blog post. My pointed (and possibly uncomfortable) question to you is…Are you going to make this a priority?
If it’s a priority, you are going to set something aside to make sure your staff, volunteers and parents know your reporting legal mandates, policies and procedures. Making child sexual abuse prevention a priority means it’s more important than getting a bid to repave the parking lot or booking the hotel rooms for the upcoming tournament or…
These things may be more pressing…deadlines are looming and people are checking on the progress. But, one day…can we agree that protecting our children from sexual abuse is, in fact, more important than…well, anything else?
When you’re ready, please let me know how I can help you, your family, your organization or your community take the necessary steps to protect our children with child sexual abuse prevention & response training or Youth Protection Policies & Procedures.
Editor’s note: This blog post took me darn near a week to write, with five rewrites. Not five sets of revisions or edits…five rewrites. For those of you who don’t know me well, my usual process is INSPIRATION (I see, hear or think of something that would be meaningful or valuable for you to know); NOODLING (The idea may percolate in my head for a day or two. Don’t disregard this step. Writing about child sexual abuse is hard and I consider it a small miracle that you read my stuff each month!); WRITE; EDIT; SEND. But, not this time.
Once you start reading, I think you’ll understand why I had such a hard time. But what’s most important is that, by the end of this post, you will have learned something new and are inspired and empowered enough to put it into action.
CHILD USA, a national think tank for child protection, created The Game Over Commission to Protect Youth Athletes to answer the solitary question:
How could every institution and person who should have protected girls from Larry Nassar fail so miserably?
Fair question.
And one that needs to be answered honestly and thoroughly if we have any hope of preventing such tragedy from happening again. By drilling down to the core of this one series of crimes and failings, the Commission is able instigate changes in the broken systems that allowed one man to harm so many.
The Commission released its 128-page “Case-Study of Systemic Abuse in Sports Perpetrated by Larry Nassar,” and the findings come with strong recommendations that span the Olympic movement, law enforcement, medical licensing boards and amateur youth sports organizations.
But the report also contains many lessons for folks like you and me. Each week, I’m going to break down a lesson learned, so maybe…just maybe we don’t have another generation of 500 young girls sexually abused by one person.
Larry Nassar taught us a lot about child sexual abuse in amateur youth sports. A lot. The big question is…are we going to step through our discomfort to learn the lessons?
As one of the largest sexual abuse cases in sports history, it is so massive and complex that it’s really easy for us to slip into, “that wouldn’t happen here.” But you see…it can. Because when you break it all the way down, this is what we have:
A child athlete, competing at both the rec and elite levels, was sexually abused by a staff person who this child, their family, and their gym owners and staff trusted.
If you think that can’t happen at your sports organization or at the sports organization where your child competes…I dare say, you are wrong.
We know that 1 in 10 children are sexually abused by their 18th birthday. We also know that 90% of these children are abused by someone they know, love and trust.
Think about a sports team or program. Any sports team or program. And then do the math.
THE FACTS
Larry Nassar was an osteopathic physician with a sub-specialty in sports medicine. While he was the team doctor for the USA Gymnastics (USAG) National Team and Michigan State University’s (MSU) women’s gymnastics team, he sexually abused upwards of 500 girls over two decades under the guise of giving them examinations or medical treatment for athletic injuries.
The Commission’s timeline identifies allegations of child sexual abuse by Nassar going back to 1992 (a year before he even graduated from medical school). These allegations appear to be the first of at least SEVEN times children reported being sexually abused by Larry Nassar or parents complained about his ‘medical treatments’ and nothing was done.
I’m sorry…’nothing was done’ is not completely accurate. Sometimes nothing was done, but other times leadership actively worked to cover up the allegations.
In my trainings, I spend a lot of time talking about the predator’s process before the abuse ever happens. It’s called ‘grooming’ and it can take months…even years. It is, essentially, master manipulation to gain the trust of the victim, their family and their community. It is also a time to start normalizing inappropriate sexual behavior.
Larry Nassar was good at it.
He was counting on his behavior being overlooked or excused because of the stature he had created for himself in the gymnastics world and that’s exactly what happened…even during numerous police interviews.
Don’t act surprised…happens all the time. Jerry Sandusky, a priest, the boy scout leader who everyone loves or everyone’s favorite coach.
But in 2016, the Indianapolis Star’s investigative team gathered enough information and evidence against Larry Nassar, that he could no longer hide behind his titles, affiliations and comforting demeanor. Nassar was ultimately arrested, charged, convicted of multiple federal crimes and sentenced to a minimum of 175 years in prison.
The Commission concluded that systemic, institutional failures left girls at extreme risk of sexual abuse. While the Commission’s findings and recommendations are fairly ‘high-level,’ I want to once again wipe away any notion of ‘that kind of thing would never happen here’ by reminding you that when you peal back the layers of fancy titles and national organizations, you still end up with:
A child athlete, competing at both the rec and elite levels, was sexually abused by a staff person who this child, their family, and their gym owners and staff trusted.
If I had to bring you one message from this 128-page-gut-wrenching-report, it would be:
Child protection must be consistent and constant. No matter what. No matter who.
We must move away from the idea of protecting our children against a certain person or a certain type of person and move toward child protection practices becoming a consistent, constant and normal part of our lives. This way, when a child discloses abuse or an adult is uncomfortable with someone’s behavior, we don’t have to make a personal judgement call whether this person could ever do anything like that.
It’s nearly impossible to think of someone we know, love or trust harming a child in this way, so silencing the child too often becomes the response. Intentionally or not.
What I’m saying is…90% of children who are sexually abused are abused by someone they know, love or trust, which means, if a child discloses abuse to you, there is a high probability that you will know the alleged perpetrator. And, if they are any good at the grooming process, you will probably think highly of and like them.
Child sexual abuse prevention is fairly simple, meaning it’s not complex or complicated; but it is far from easy. It’s very uncomfortable, even scary. But that cannot stand in our way.
Do what you need to do to walk through this discomfort and fear – child sexual abuse prevention and response training for staff and parents, educating and empowering athletes, policies & procedures, and hiring practices – to name a few
We – THE ADULTS – need to be more courageous, more willing to shatter the silence and shame, more willing to do differently…do better.
When you’re ready, please let me know how I can help you, your family, your organization or your community take the necessary steps to protect our children.
I know this is the season to set our intentions for the coming year. What are our new year resolutions or our words for the year? Where are we going to focus our energies?
As much as I love a good Vision Board, I have to admit that I’ve always been a sucker for some good old-fashioned introspection.
This felt like a tough year for me. I think we all had high hopes for 2021…the year that replaced 2020! That’s a lot of pressure for just 365 days.
I quickly realized that to gain clarity on the coming year, I needed more clarity on the past year. I don’t know if I’m the only one, but thinking back through 2021 produced a lot of fuzz. Seriously…fuzz. There were so many emotions that I couldn’t quite get a clear picture.
So, I pulled out my calendar and had a good look-see. And then I sat back and marveled. I really did. If you had asked me, I don’t know that I could have quantified the successes and blessings of 2021 without this exercise.
Without this nudge, I don’t think I would have remembered that I presented my signature “Child Sexual Abuse Prevention in Youth Sports” at two national conferences, which had participants from around the globe. I’m not being trite when I say it was a thrilling experience.
Here in Indiana, the Cass County Chapter of Prevent Child Abuse Indiana, Indiana Youth Services Association and the Boone County Child Advocacy Center asked me to talk about child sexual abuse prevention and response to their members, partners, supporters and community members. What an honor. And in December, I educated parents and coaches at a Zionsville Town Hall Meeting, which, by the way, was my first in-person training in TWO YEARS! It felt so good to connect with a live audience.
Additionally, I worked with the Association of Child & Youth Care Practice (ACYCP) to provide continuing education to their member youth serving organizations throughout America and Canada.
I’m an Authorized Facilitator and Certified Instructor for Darkness to Light’s Stewards of Children® (SOC). This year alone, I trained the 2nd-year Rabbinic students at Hebrew Union College in SOC and helped train 130 child advocates from around the world as SOC Authorized Facilitators.
I developed two sets of Youth Protection Policies & Procedures for youth serving organizations and assisted Sylvia’s Child Advocacy Center earn its national accreditation from the National Children’s Alliance.
Because of the pandemic and the Zoom Explosion I was able to participate in two business programs that I never would have had access to otherwise.
I graduated from the Art of Mindful Storytelling with Jennifer James. Jen is…well…the best way I can describe her is a marketing and branding wizard, as well as a Mindful Storytelling Coach. With Jen’s wise counsel (and patience!), I formalized my company’s mission, vision and guiding principles. I also produced a six-minute video that unfolds My Why.
And then I had the amazing opportunity to work with entrepreneurial maven Samantha Bove and complete her business accelerator program, ZenBoss Academy. Sam and her team helped me develop and launch a new signature prevention program for parents (Stay tuned…news on this coming SOON!)
A first for me…I was a Christmas present this year! (You may have seen my social media post with me jumping out of a gift box. Also a first for me!) A woman I met through ZenBoss Academy was so moved by what she learned about my work, she purchased a personal one-hour session with me for each of her siblings who have children. Such a unique and loving idea that will positively impact these families for generations.
While this started in 2020, it powered through into 2021. I’m talking about my belated awareness of systemic racism and social injustice. I’ve tried to spend my time reading, listening and contemplating. I’ve learned a great deal, but similarly to child sexual abuse prevention, there isn’t a real finish line to this learning. So, I continue. I will list the books and trainings that have been most impactful on me and my work in a soon-to-arrive Resources section on my website.
Again, thanks to the Zoom Explosion, I was able to attend virtual conferences and learn from some of the world’s experts and leaders on child protection to help me stay abreast of the latest research, innovations and best practices. I have been incorporating so much of what I learned into my work!
Let’s wrap with a bit of gratitude. I am so thankful for..,
Our good health. (Knock wood!) no one in our immediate family has caught Covid;
The roof over our head. No kidding. I’m so grateful for my husband’s job and that I’ve been able to grow this important work during such difficult times; and
YOU!
Thank you to each of you who have walked alongside me and these amazing successes of 2021. Many of you have participated in my trainings, hired me to work with your organization, forwarded one of my blog posts to someone who needed that information, engaged with and shared my social media posts because you saw its value, changed your own child protection behaviors because of something you learned from me, talked about my work with a friend, relative or co-worker, or simply offered me love and support to keep up the good fight.
I love you all and I wish you and your families a new year of good health, happiness, prosperity and doing all we can for the good of our children.
Please reach out if I can be of any help to you or your organization in the coming year. Email me at toby@starkcg.net or find me on Instagram at @tobystarkprevention.
Our good health. (Knock wood!) no one in our immediate family has caught Covid;
starkcg.net 