Teachers as Children Sexual Abuse Prevention Agents.

Abstract

This paper deals with the prevention of child sexual abuse in the educational area. The objective was to implement and assess an intervention program to enable pre-school teachers to act as child sexual abuse primary prevention agents. 101 pre-school teachers of the Public School System, 2.918 children, students of such teachers, and 2.732 family members of the children participated of the program. The program was developed based on experiences of other programs developed, evaluated and described in the literature. A partnership with the municipality’s Education Board was developed. Teachers participated of 12 weekly meeting, throughout three months and developed practical activities with the children and their family members on prevention of the child sexual abuse. Assessment data pointed out that program had a positive impact in the school and the community.