Community-Based Prevention

Since its founding in 1992, Stop It Now! has worked with local, state, national and international organizations to change the way people think about child sexual abuse and give them actions to take to protect children. Through this comprehensive community based programming we challenged communities to come together to make prevention a priority and to safeguard children’s right to freedom from sexual abuse.  

From our initial pilot projects in the United States to our partnership with our sister organization Stop It Now! UK & Ireland to our consultation with new community collaborations in emerging countries, Stop It Now! is committed to empowering adults and communities to create safe environments that ensure the wellbeing of all children.

Currently, we are focusing our efforts on community based action on emerging countries based on our available funding. We are not in a position to support another organization under our umbrella at this time. However, we are in the process of developing our training and technical assistance capacity and specifically looking for funding to enable that work.  To that end, we are conducting a survey to see what services are needed to strengthen our case for funding. If you would be interested in a collaboration, please take this Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Programming survey. If you have funding now and would like to collaborate on a particular project, contact us. 

Stop it Now! UK & Ireland
Community Partnerships in Emerging Countries
Community Partnerships and Prevention Model  (archives)

Stop it Now! UK & Ireland

Stop it Now! UK & Ireland is a sister organization sponsored by the Lucy Faithfull Foundation and run independently of Stop It Now! USA.  Both Stop It Now! organizations share philosophy and goals that were originally developed by Stop It Now! (USA). For more information, contact Stop it Now UK & Ireland.

Community Partnerships in Emerging Countries

Stop It Now! is piloting  collaborations in emerging countries to provide support to and learn from them around planning, adopting and adapting individual program components of the Stop It Now! model.  These efforts are designed to improve the capacity of professionals and policy makers to help adults and communities insure the sexual health and safety of children through a focus on adult responsibility, primary preventioni, and help for all those involved.

Collaborating Organizations 2011-2012International Partners Meeting, Trinidad

Child Aid Organization of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya
Corpolatin, Cali, Colombia
Media Concern Initiative for Women and Children, Lagos, Nigeria

Activities

  • Participation in the research symposium "Advanced Training for Preventing Child Sexual Abuse-- Cross Cultural Explorations, Explanations and Interventions" in Trinidad
  • Collaboration in developing and adapting an online Prevention Planning and Implementation Guide
  • Implementing training projects in local communities
  • Shared evaluation methods and reporting

Collaborating Organizations 2010

Child Aid Organization of Kenya, Nairobi, Kenya
Corpolatin, Cali, Colombia
Media Concern Initiative for Women and Children, Lagos, Nigeria
Tulir: Centre for the Prevention & Healing of Child Sexual Abuse, Chennai, India

Activities

  • Individual sessions to build shared understanding
  • Self-study analysis
  • Focus groups for professionals in child/family serving organizations
  • Sustainability planning
  • Collaborating on adaptation of Stop It Now!  child sexual abuse prevention resources and materials
  • Training of professionals and community members
  • Sharing Helpline best practices

Community Based Prevention Model and  Partnerships  (Archives)

From 1995 to 2010, Stop It Now! worked with local organizations to create Stop It Now! sites.  These sites provided Stop It Now! with the ability to develop and test its prevention approach in a variety of communities and locations. 

Each Stop It Now! site was sponsored by a local organization who raised independent funds, agreed to follow Stop It Now!’s guiding principles and created local multi-disciplinary advisory committees.  While all Stop It Now! sites followed the same principles, each site also adapted their specific activities to their community. 

Stop It Now! messages of adult and community responsibility and its programming continue to be embedded in the work of these organizations.

Collaborating Organizations

Stop It Now! Vermont (1995-2000): Safer Society Foundation, Inc.
Stop It Now! Philadelphia (1999-2008): Joseph J. Peters Institute
Stop It Now! Minnesota (2000-2010): Project Pathfinder, Inc.
Stop It Now! Georgia (2003-2008): Prevent Child Abuse Georgia
Stop It Now! Virginia Helpline (2004-2009): Virginia Department of Health
Stop It Now! Massachusetts Helpline (2004-2006): MCSOM
Stop It Now! Wisconsin (2005-2007): Children’s Trust Fund and the Child Abuse Prevention Fund of Children’s Hospital and Health System
Stop It Now! Australia (2006): Phoenix House

Activities

  • Local Research
  • Professional Education & Technical Assistance
  • Public Education & Training
  • Community Dialogues
  • Media Campaigns
  • Evaluation

Local Research

Each site was asked to conduct a randomized telephone survey to measure local community knowledge, attitudes, and actions taken related to child sexual abuse.  Survey results were used to adapt Stop It Now!’s overall approach specifically to the local site.  In many cases, these surveys were repeated after local programming was in place for the purposes of evaluating social marketing campaigns . For more information, see the 2010 Report "What Do US Adults Think about Child Sexual Abuse?"

In addition, local sites did other research.  Stop It Now! Minnesota conducted social marketing research with adults who were at risk to sexually abuse children and with family members where a child had been sexually abused by someone in the household.  This research was both used locally and shared with other sites for their use.  Programs in Vermont, Philadelphia and Georgia also conducted focus groups whose input was used to create marketing campaigns and review campaign materials.  Learn more about Stop It Now! research.

Professional Education & Technical Assistance

Sites provided extensive education and technical assistance to professionals working with children and families.  Many sites offered workshops and training for professionals including child care providers, educators, faith community leaders, sexual assault advocates, etc.  Workshops emphasized how individuals and organizations could take action and how to recognize and respond to concerning behaviors and situations before children were harmed.  Site staff also provided formal and informal technical assistance to individuals and organizations on topics including policies and practices to prevent child sexual abuse, topic expertise for family interventions, and how to talk about concerning behaviors. 

Public Education & Training

Stop It Now! sites also provided training and information to individuals through distributing educational materials, using the media to educate community members about Stop It Now!’s prevention approach, and participating in and hosting relevant community meetings. 

Community Dialogues

Community Dialogues bring together a panel of people affected by childhood sexual abuse, including adults who were sexually abused as children, adults who sexually abused children (and have been through treatment and adjudication), and family members to share their stories and to engage in conversations with members of the audience.  Dialogues often provide individuals with a first-hand opportunity to think about child sexual abuse from several viewpoints. To learn more, see our newsletter article "Dialogue Project breaks New Ground."

Media Campaigns

Sites also created and distributed advertising campaigns (including billboards, posters, radio ads, etc.)  Campaigns were based on local research and emphasized the need for adults to take preventive action to keep kids safe and introduced audiences viewers to the 1.888.PREVENT Helpline.  Learn more from Marketing sexual abuse prevention by Peter Pollard in  Behavioral Healthcare, May, 2006, Vol. 26, No. 5, pp. 8-9

Evaluation

Stop It Now! is committed to evaluating its public health approach.  In addition to process evaluation collected across the programs, several research reports have documented the results of our programs. 

  • Vermont’s four year comprehensive evaluation of Stop It Now! which showed the program was successful in getting abusers to call for help and in increasing adults’ knowledge and discussion of child sexual abuse. See the Evalution of the Stop It Now! Vermont program, 2000.
  • Virginia Department of Health's evaluation of its media campaign showed positive impact on adults' attitudes about prevention.  See the VDH Evaluation Report 2007.
  • With support of a grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Stop It Now! Minnesota worked with the University of Kansas Community Toolbox on a participatory research study to examine the effects of Stop It Now! Minnesota's statewide intervention which suggests that comprehensive statewide preventative efforts can lead to changes in the protective environment and associated improvement in key indicators of child sexual abuse.  See the poster Collaborative Efforts to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse in Minnesota: An Empirical Case Study, 2008.