This week we chatted with Perla Freed, the Executive Director for the YMCA Guardians for Child Protection, to discuss what advocating for child sexual abuse prevention might look like in Hispanic communities. Perla is an expert in the development, implementation and oversight of policies and practices to create and sustain a safe environment for children. …
As an immigrant and survivor, I know there is stigma that surrounds sexual abuse; the perspective in Hispanic communities is that we do not share our pain or talk about uncomfortable topics. Even now that I have disclosed what happened to me, I have always felt like the topic wants to be forgotten. In recent …
What does a person who sexually abuses children look like? We hear all the time, “I could tell if he was a child molester.” The reality is that you can’t. Most child molesters aren’t creepy men in vans. They aren’t hardened criminals. They aren’t from one race, gender, or sexual orientation. Those who sexually abuse …
Excerpt from clevelandclinic.org Traumatic events in children’s lives can have the same effect as head trauma, a new study says. The study, published recently in the Journal of Psychiatric Research, finds that emotional trauma at a young age may cause changes to the brain that are similar to head trauma. The connection between emotional trauma’s …
Excerpt from “Letter to the Editor” on desmoinesregister.com State Sen. Janet Petersen deserves credit for taking on the issue of child sexual abuse in a difficult political climate, but the opposition she’s encountering shows how little this crime is understood even by lawmakers and others who should know better. This is especially true concerning the …