News Stories
Success Story: Teaching Children How to Stay Safe
When second-grade teacher Barbara Fraser was a child, a friend told her she was being molested. Barbara didn't understand what the girl was talking about and couldn't fathom how to help her with this mysterious problem. She now feels that if they had known what abuse was and had the language to talk about it, they would have turned to the girl's mother sooner for help.
Years later, at Our Lady of the Lake School in Seattle, Barbara and her fellow grade-school teachers were trained in implementing the TALKING ABOUT TOUCHING personal safety program, which addresses the issue of child sexual abuse.
Even as an adult, Barbara felt as if she didn't know some of the skills and information the Talking About Touching program teaches, though she fully supported her school's plan, especially as she thought back to her childhood friend.
"I believe that knowledge is very powerful. So often kids are just told 'No,' but if they don't understand why, how are they to really get it?" Barbara says.
In class Barbara and her students talk about all the people they can go to for support. She trusts that if there is a question of abuse, the kids have the resources they need to figure out whom to talk to, even if it's not her.
"If we bring this information out in the open, if we're talking about it in school, it'll be easier to talk about anywhere else," she says.
Barbara credits excellent training from Committee for Children and very strong support from then-principal Delores Crosby (as well as continued support from current principal Maureen Blum), for the teachers' positive approach to teaching a potentially delicate subject-in a private Catholic school. It may be due to the no-nonsense, matter-of-fact attitude the school took, but in all these years, Barbara has never heard a parent express concerns about the subject matter.
Today, after 17 years of teaching TALKING ABOUT TOUCHING lessons to young grade-schoolers, Barbara knows that the benefits from personal-safety training go beyond the classroom out into the world. She states, simply, "I wouldn't teach it if I didn't think it was important, especially for the shyer kids."