As the DC Children’s Advocacy Center and the DC Chapter of Prevent Child Abuse America, Safe Shores is committed to learning from our work and sharing insights to advance the field of child abuse prevention. Safe Shores’ latest publication in the Journal of Child Sexual Abuse underscores the importance not only of what we teach in child sexual abuse prevention programs but also of how we successfully lead and integrate these programs into schools.
Research has shown that child sexual abuse is preventable, and school-based prevention education and programming can help protect children before abuse occurs. Involving caregivers, faculty and staff in these programs has shown an even greater increase in these programs’ effectiveness. However, how to best involve caregivers, faculty and staff in these programs needs more robust research. This article, titled “Implementation of a School-Based Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Program in an Urban Elementary School: Lessons Learned from a Pilot Evaluation Study of the Healthy Relationships Project,” helps provide a basis for more of that much needed research.
From 2022-2025, Safe Shores’ Prevention and Outreach Program has been the lead on implementing one such prevention program throughout DC schools, called The Healthy Relationships Project. This implementation is a part of an evaluation study funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and in partnership with Prevent Child Abuse Vermont, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and Northeastern University.
The research article details lessons learned from implementing the Healthy Relationships Project at the pilot school and highlights key partnerships, planning, strategies, and adaptations that supported implementation. The article stresses the importance of having caregivers and staff involved and engaged while implementing HRP. It also shares challenges the team faced, including staff anxieties about content of child sexual abuse prevention programs, and best practices for continuing to implement HRP, such as: clear communication with caregivers in their preferred language, and comprehensive training for staff and faculty so they felt more at ease and with ownership over prevention efforts. The team hopes these findings serve as a guide for other children’s advocacy centers, schools, and community organizations seeking to strengthen their prevention efforts through school-based intervention programs.
What is the Healthy Relationships Project?
The Healthy Relationships Project©, developed by Prevent Child Abuse Vermont, is a school-based program designed to prevent child sexual abuse. The curricula consist of training for school staff, six weeks of classroom lessons for children, and caregiver workshops. All programs are developmentally appropriate, trauma-informed, and focus on both victim and problematic sexual behavior prevention. Since its implementation, substantiated cases in Vermont dropped 72% between 1992 and 2020, and the number of child perpetrators dropped 77% simultaneously.
