Safe and strong child

Safe and Strong Child© is a sexual abuse prevention program for children from Pre-K to Grade 6, their teachers, and caregivers.  Participants learn how to recognize, respond, and report child abuse. Safe and Strong  bridges our community by building partnerships with schools, child-care centers, youth-serving agencies, churches, and other community organizations.  

1. Developmentally appropriate curriculum:  Safe and Strong Child© (SSC) program provides a body safety curriculum aligned with evidence-informed best practice standards outlined by the National Sexual Violence Research Center’s “Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Programs for Children” programming guidelines. The classroom presentations are designed to teach children about safe, confusing, and unsafe touch in a non-threatening environment. The program consists of developmentally appropriate classroom lessons that are taught interactively through stories, role play, and song in a non-threatening environment. Children are taught to identify the difference between safe and unsafe touch. They learn how to set and honor personal body boundaries. Children learn that it is never a child’s fault if they get an unsafe touch.  The presentations are interactive and children are encouraged to participate and ask questions.
2. Professional teacher and staff training: The purpose of the teacher/staff training is to provide teachers and support staff with information on the content of classroom presentations and how the personal body safety concepts can be reinforced in the classroom and with children and families.
3. Parent/Caregiver Meeting: The purpose of this meeting is to introduce the Safe and Strong Child© curriculum which will be presented in the classroom to parents or caregivers. Also discussed at this meeting are grooming/manipulation tactics used by perpetrators, age appropriate sexual behavior and how to respond to disclosures of abuse. The focus of this meeting is to address parent/caregiver concerns and to have an open conversation about body safety and the curriculum.