Enforcing the Institutional Boundaries that Keep Kids Safe

Teresa: Hi, I’m Teresa Huizar, your host of One in Ten. In today’s episode, Enforcing the Institutional Boundaries that Keep Kids Safe, I speak with Dr. Luciana Assini-Meytin, Associate Scientist at the MOORE Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse at Johns Hopkins, now over the last two decades, media coverage of institutional abuse has been a key lever in driving public understanding of the gaps in child protection and also serving as an accountability measure on the organizations as they move to better protect children.

In the wake of scandals, many institutions, whether schools, faith communities, sports, or youth serving organizations, all instituted a dizzying array of policies and procedures to prevent and respond to abuse. But how effective was that implementation? And did the codes of conduct and the limitations on boundary violating behaviors actually work?

And most importantly, did we in fact keep kids safe? As you will hear, the data gives us hope about what is possible.  Also, this lack of uniform improvement reinforces that we still have a long way to go. I know you’ll find this conversation as thought provoking as I did.  Please take a listen. Hey, Luciana. Welcome to One in Ten.

Luciana: Thank you so much. It’s nice to be here.

Teresa: How did you come to this work, looking at child sexual abuse, boundary violating behaviors, and how that occurs in youth serving organizations specifically?

Luciana: Sure. So, in 2018, I had the opportunity to lead a work that was Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau receiving Grants by the Bloomberg American Health Initiative.

And one of the aims in that project was to do a deep dive, a deep characterization of all the policies, procedures, and codes of conduct that large organizations for recreation and culture in the U. S.  were doing to prevent and address child sexual abuse in their organizational setting. So, it really has, we partnered with four of their largest and longest operating serving organizations in the U.S. and I had the opportunity to do a deep dive into their documents. So they provided us with over 150 files that comprised of codes of conduct, training, Policies, anything that they had written or even recorded in terms of trainings that pertain to child sexual abuse prevention and response. From that, we created a code book, we coded all of those files.

In two broad categories, we had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with these documents and understand that these organizations do a lot to prevent and address child sexual abuse, a lot in closing in, in addressing boundary violated behaviors with codes of conduct, like our employees are not to transport children in their own vehicles, for example.

And what we wanted to understand is that, okay, so we know that, we know some of these organizations are addressing child sexual abuse since the 70s.  We know that several other organizations like the CDC launched a very important document with guidelines in 2007. So we knew a lot was being done in this space.

But we didn’t know if there was having an impact at the populational level. So, this is how we came then to do another study. Also, we talked to Elizabeth Letourneau, to understand whether we are seeing an impact on boundary violating behaviors  and also on child sexual abuse by adults in organizational settings at the larger populational level.

Teresa: So, just for our listeners who may not know some of the terms that we’re using. First of all, let’s start with a youth serving organization. What types of organizations are we talking about when we say youth serving organization?

Luciana: Sure. In our case, and for this study, we are talking about any organization that serves children, meaning K-12 organizations.

So, with schools, we are including large organizations for recreation and culture like the Y. We are including sports organizations. We are including religious organizations and music and arts programs.

Teresa: And when we then talk about boundary violating behaviors.  What exactly are we talking about? What range of behaviors is that term intended to describe?

Luciana: Sure. So we are talking about here about boundary violating behaviors and not grooming,  and we make this distinction because actually when we set up this study, we set up to measure grooming  and we realized that was very difficult to do.  Because grooming, in our case, because we are not students, just survivors, we are doing a survey at the population level with the general population, with people who have experienced abuse or not.

So, grooming is always in hindsight.  It’s something that’s, or behaviors that someone, a person, use to, to seek the trust of a child, to entrust someone, to then commit a sexual offense.  And boundary violating behaviors, we’re using this terminology because these are behaviors that can be grooming or not. So they are potential antecedents of child sexual abuse, comprising of more subtle forms of behavior that may be innocuous, like giving a ride to a child that it’s a boundary violating behavior, but maybe that only happened because it was too cold and nobody came to pick up the child. This is not going to be used to, to enlist the child in child sexual abuse. So these are the behaviors that we are talking about, boundary violating behaviors.

And in our study, we measure four types, one, ingratiating contact, So, the behaviors that were used to become more friendly with the child, so treating the child like someone more special than others, giving the child gifts when not giving to other people, or rule violations like giving drugs to a child or alcohol.

We also have boundary violations that pertains to contacts with family. And also, classified as sexual misconduct, which can be really abuse, but are behaviors that are more classified as non-contact abuse that can be used to then perpetrate contact abuse against a child.

Teresa: I think one of the things that was interesting to me about it is the way that it captured, um, also things where, you know, now in many youth serving organizations, as you point out in the study, There are many rules about contact between children and adults, and between staff and clients, and so something might or might not be intended for sexual grooming purposes, but it’s a violation of a rule, essentially, and therefore a violation of a boundary, because that rule was put in place to try to protect children. Is that a way, another way to characterize some of this?

Luciana: Exactly. Exactly. And we are doing one of the analysis that we’re doing and we have planned is to understand what type of behaviors are more predictive of child sexual abuse by adults in our organization. So, I think this analysis will be able to answer some of these questions.

Teresa: Let’s just also lay the groundwork for people. What do we already know from the literature about boundary violating behaviors in youth serving organizations? I mean, going into the study as you were developing it, was it a clean slate or were there things already known from research?

Luciana: So first, we based off a lot of the behaviors that we did, that scoping review of the policies that I just addressed in the beginning. So, we really wanted to have a view and an assessment whether there were changes over time in the rates and the prevalence of those behaviors in organizations. And the other piece of the literature was really this with Keith Kaufman, who was also part of this study with models, even research by Dr. Elizabeth Jeglic, really people who studied or researchers who studied behaviors, grooming behaviors that were, um, used to then sexually abuse a child. So, we were basing a lot in our behaviors came up, behaviors list came off of these research.

Teresa: Yes, some of the folks you’ve been talking about have been on One in Ten before, so we’ve had numerous conversations with Dr. Jeglic about her grooming research, so I think this is one of the things when we saw the study that you did, we thought it was a nice compliment in terms of adding to the literature of a subject that we’ve been talking about fairly often. I’m just wondering, you know, what have you found when looking at the literature overall how common these kinds of boundary violating behaviors are?

Luciana: That’s a good question. So, what I understood from the literature, a lot of what we knew was, again, from research from people who already committed abuse, but some of these behaviors are used by people who don’t commit abuse.  So, I would say that, to my knowledge, this is one of the first studies that I identified that gives really this prevalence overall, regardless if the child was abused or not, on the prevalence, or again, how common these behaviors are outside or not, even if they are not linked with any abuse.

Teresa: You know, as you were saying that, I was thinking, yet, like, they’re not linked with that yet. And they might not ever be. I mean, in common conversation, people talk about, oh, that person doesn’t have good boundaries. And they’re not saying that they’re necessarily going to go sexually abuse anyone. They’re simply saying that this is a person that doesn’t observe boundaries that have been placed in the relationship.

And I think it is a good area and very ripe for research to start taking a look at that and whether, in fact, that is a pathway of concern for something further on. Can you talk just a little bit about what your specific research questions were? You’ve talked about past literature, you’ve talked about things that are complementary in terms of looking at grooming, the way that this shifted the landscape of what your study was going to be about. And so, after all of that, what were the specific research questions that you were hoping to answer?

Luciana: So, the main research question that we’re hoping to answer was to understand whether there was a decline in child sexual abuse by adults in what we call these large youth serving organizations for recreation and culture in the U.S., which in this study we call in quotes the big six.

So that was the main answer that we wanted to understand.  So now. Other things that became a little bit secondary here, understanding abuse, and also understanding boundary violating behaviors that, again, can be, and some are, precursors of abuse that needs to be interrupted.  Now, we also included in this study, because we wanted to understand whatever we would observe, right, either whether it was an increase, or a stability, or a decline, we needed to understand if this was something that happened because child sexual abuse is declining overall, if we observe a decline.

So, we included several other organizational settings as a reference. So, we included abuse and bodily violence behaviors in sports organizations, in religious organizations, in music and arts programs, in K-12 schools, and abuse by anyone else unrelated to an organizational setting. So, from there, we could really understand, follow those trends, compare with trends overall, and also with trends in these specific other settings.

Teresa: I actually thought the tables included in the paper about those comparisons were some of the most helpful ones and very interesting because often you see every program that touches kids, there’s all institutional settings wind up getting sort of lumped into the same research, and so being able to see what it looks like within religious organizations, what it looks like within youth sports, what it looks like in educational settings versus after school and other types of programs that are youth serving but not tied to those specific things, I think was very interesting to me. And what did you find when you were looking at this question about does it seem to have been reduced? And if so, what’s the cause of that?  What did the study turn up?

Luciana: Yeah, so I think the study turned up to be very positive. We were expecting to see a decline just because, again, we saw all of the measures that these organizations implemented in their settings. And we did identify a 20 percent decline in child sexual abuse by adults when comparing these two cohorts in these big six organizations.

We didn’t find the same finding for any other organizations. We saw declines in some boundary violating behaviors in sports and religious organizations, but I think that was a major, major finding to the field, even though, again, there are limitations. This is a cohort study, even though it’s not causal, it’s still good evidence.

Teresa: So, for folks who didn’t read the study, let’s just sort of set it up for them a little bit about the comparisons and age groups you were looking at and why that was important. Because we hope our listeners will go and look at the show notes and read the study, but they might or might not. What were the sort of age cohorts that you were looking at?

Luciana: So, we are looking at ages 18 to 22. So, these were participants that were born between the years of 2000 and 2021.  And the second subsequent cohort, we’re looking at ages 32 to 36. So, these were people born between 86 and, or sorry, not born, that spend their childhood between 86 and 2007. So, basically what we wanted to do here, we wanted to work with adults.

So, we had ages 18 to 22 that were the most recent adults that were the ones who were just expanding their childhoods or experiencing their childhoods in those organizations. And the most subsequent cohort without too much overlap in childhood years. So, we didn’t want to have a comparison between ages 18 to 22 and people in their 50s just because the landscape and the prevalence of child sexual abuse has changed so much. So we wanted to have the most closing age without too much overlap in childhood years. That was the rationale from how we designed these two cohorts.

Teresa: And all of us certainly have been hoping that all of the effort that has gone into setting policies and procedures to help protect children and all of the prevention education that has gone on for adults and for kids that there would be a difference between individuals who were in their thirties and individuals who are younger and hopefully the beneficiary of some of those. And as I’m hearing you say this, not that we can say that there’s a direct causal link, but there’s certainly this 20 percentage point drop, if I’m remembering what you’re saying among the big six in those age bands would imply that whatever the cause, something has improved the amount, the level, the prevalence of child sexual abuse in that period. Is that right?

Luciana: Yes. And this is specifically why we included the other reference groups, because if we saw declines, and again, specifically in child sexual abuse by adults, Overall, across all groups, I would say, okay, maybe child sexual abuse has just been declining.

So, it would be more difficult to ascertain that, that something had to do with what was happening in these organizations. But this is not what we have seen for child sexual abuse specifically. And even in K 12 schools, we saw an increase, for example, in sexual misconduct.

Teresa: I’m curious. While I’m delighted that we saw the reductions we did, where we did, because those big six serve a lot of kids, that’s where a lot of kids spend their time, it is concerning that you did not see the equivalent drop in youth sports, religious groups, K-12 education, institutional abuse, those kinds of things. When you think about, even though this was not necessarily in your study, when you think about that difference, how do you reflect on that? What do you make of the fact that some of those other groups just have not had the same gains?

Luciana: Yeah, so I think part of this explanation might be the fact that these big six have been so consistently and for so long adopted and implemented those measures to prevent and address abuse. I think we have seen, even though we didn’t see gains in child sexual abuse by adults, specifically in sports and religious organizations, we did see some declines in, in other boundary violating behaviors that I think are very, important findings and may reflect more relatively more recent adoption of policies with safe sports and all that regulates sports. So, I think there was some gains in there. To me, the concerning piece is really the K-12 for us to see the increase in sexual misconduct for child sexual abuse.

In the way we assess it, we didn’t see any change in K-12, which is very similar to what Dr. Elizabeth Jeglic in a paper that she published in 2014 found. So, no changes in contact abuse, but some increase in non-contact abuse, which would be equivalent to our measure of sexual misconduct.

Teresa: You know, I found that both puzzling and, of course, deeply concerning. Post Erin’s Laws, there’s so much child sexual abuse prevention education that goes on in the school setting, not only for children, but for all mandatory reporters, now that’s reached, I don’t know, 38 states or something, and counting, and even where Aaron’s Law is not in place, there’s certainly lots of voluntary efforts going on in that way. What do you make of it? Is it the inconsistency in application? Is it that, yes, there’s training, but there’s not the sort of policy that would prevent these things from occurring, or what conclusions do you draw from that?

Luciana: You know, what I hypothesize is that those trainings don’t directly address educator sexual misconduct or abuse by adults in schools, by teachers or other staff members from the school. And now so there’s really these codes of conduct in terms of boundary violations, in terms of what is expected or not expected in terms of the ways that an adult or a teacher can communicate with you electronically.

So, I think that most likely those trainings are not getting into those specificities, and this is why we are not seeing any change in that in that regard.

Teresa: It’s an interesting point you’re making, which is if you look at the youth serving organizations, they understand that the risk comes from their own staff and volunteers. So, they’re training. Kids and others, not just to recognize signs of abuse or grooming or anything else, boundary violating behaviors, generally, but in the context of the setting and what you’re saying is that in a school setting, unfortunately, what’s happening in many cases is there’s a broad education, but it’s sort of assuming that someone else is the the target of that, you know, not a teacher, not a coach, not a school volunteer, not the school janitor, not the school nurse, whatever.

And so, kids may not, and mandatory reporters may not be picking up on the fact that in the school setting, you need to be paying attention to how these things apply there. And I’m also wondering about this code of conduct piece.  Did you all, and I don’t remember from your study, did you all examine this issue about, certainly in youth serving organizations, you look at the application of conduct and the violations of them. I’m curious about what you’re seeing in K-12 settings about codes of conduct. Is that something that you’re routinely seeing in place, that it covers the kinds of things that you would expect it to see, or is this itself a weakness that you think is driving some of the difference in rates?

Luciana: Yeah, I don’t think there is, how can I say, a more standard adoption of codes of conduct in schools. Yeah, I don’t think that is happening. And there is one point of this research that we didn’t publish that yet, but I think it’s very interesting and peculiar and speaks to the importance of codes of conduct and interrupting boundary violating behaviors.  So, let me see if I can explain this well.  Because we’re not being able to measure grooming because we’re assessing with the whole population, basically the way we design our survey, we first ask, have you experienced these types of boundary violating behaviors?

In this case of ingratiating contact. So, we are asking about gift giving, we are asking about giving a car ride and et cetera. And then, we went on to follow up questions, and we asked for those who experienced these behaviors in the Big 6, we asked, did the people who did that to you, did they ever touch you sexually? So, we wanted to make somehow the link.  And what was interesting in our analysis was that those in the younger cohort for ingratiating contact that are, in quotes, lower-level boundary violating behaviors or less concerning the sexual misconduct, for example. So those in the younger cohorts, they have a lower proportion of saying, yes, this person also sexually abused me than those in the older cohort.

Teresa: That’s interesting.

Luciana: I thought this was a very interesting and important finding to see that lower rate of conversions.  Between the violating behaviors in gray shading context, specifically turning into sexual abuse in the younger cohort, relatively to the older forwards, which I believe those behaviors are being interrupted earlier, which I thought is very important.

Teresa: I mean, and a good sign. I think the other thing that’s such a difference when you’re dealing with older youth is that sadly, all this ingratiating behavior gets translated often and interpreted as, this is my boyfriend, this is my girlfriend. You know, the sort of teacher, youth sexual abuse where sadly so many youth somehow think that this is some sort of permanent life partner and when they, in fact, are a child sexual abuse victim. And so, I wonder if that is a key difference here, that they’re reporting that, yes, it happened and that they were sexually abused because they were at the time interpreting it as somehow romantic relationship building as opposed to something else.

Luciana: You know, being a very important point, and we discussed this point so much. And how to assess in our survey, we tried to do that. I don’t think we were, we succeed in assessing it. It’s so nuanced and so difficult to understand, but I think it is an extremely important point. I received now another funding to do a research, to do a prevalence survey specifically in K-12 and do a deeper dive in K-12. And, this is something that I am trying to assess and tease out at the population level on that survey instruments.

Teresa: I would be so curious to see your results when that’s done because I do think we can’t have too much research on that point in terms of all of the ways that these situations develop. As you were talking, one of the things that I was thinking about is within Children’s Advocacy Centers, which are a big portion of the listeners of this podcast, we’ve had National Standards for Accreditation for many, many years, and they have included some child safety related items for a long time. But one of the things that we did in our last revision was add to those the requirement to have a code of conduct.

It was really interesting because a Child’s Advocacy Center is really the last place that you want to attempt to abuse a child because there are cameras and there are recordings of interactions and there’s law enforcement on site and CPS and all those things, but it doesn’t mean it’s impossible. So, when we first instituted this, I think people had this sort of thing like, don’t we already have this covered? Why would we need this? You know, the research, and Elizabeth Letourneau sat on the task force that was working to develop this with us. Well, the research is clear that codes of conduct seem to make a difference, so we’re going to institute that. And it would be interesting, we haven’t yet seen research in which CACs were specifically a part of that, and it’s also hard to measure when you have a low baseline to begin with in terms of misconduct occurring, and being reported, but at the same time, I think it powerfully speaks to the fact that part of what a code of conduct does is put people on notice that are adults, right, about what’s the expected behaviors and what’s not and as an employer gives you an ability to discipline employees who violate those or others.

But I think the other thing that it does is reframe for children and youth what they’re seeing. Do you know what I mean? Like, I think all kids and families when any adult in a position of authority interacts with them thinks that the reason they’re doing so is positive, or at least neutral that they have their best interest in mind.

And I think, what a code of conduct really acknowledges, especially if it’s displayed and people see it and they’re notified of it. And what’s expected is just an acknowledgement that there is no risk-free place of the universe. And we’re trying to make things safer, but you’re expected to speak up if something violates this. And, I think that alone can be powerful. And I think that your research, while it covered a much broader range of things and policies than just codes of conduct. I think that that has, at least for us, been an important step forward in shaping the thinking of our own network of children’s advocacy centers around this.

Luciana: I love everything that you just said, and I think that codes of conduct should be normalized. I think probably there will be an impact of those codes of conduct that you are talking about, not only for that space. The family or a parent that goes there sees those behaviors. I am sure if part of these behaviors happens in other contexts, it’s already going to be in their mind. And, I think this is so important to just normalize what is expected, what is not expected of people, as you said, in positions of authority that you expect would have, again, your best interest or your child’s best interest in mind.

Teresa: I really love what you’re saying now about the way this models it for them in other settings. I mean, when we made the decision, we weren’t thinking about that. We were just thinking we want children’s advocacy centers to be as safe as they possibly can be all the time in any way. But, I love the thought that it’s also setting an example so that a parent, if they see the same behavior elsewhere, can go, “oh, well, now wait a minute. That wasn’t okay at the CAC. They don’t think that’s okay. So, is it okay here?”

One of the things I wanted to ask you about, which I think is much more difficult for organizations to, well, frankly, keep an eye on, but also I think we’re seeing rising concerns around it, has been, like, online contact. Whether that’s something through social media or using messaging apps or, you know, whatever it might be. There’s a million ways that can happen. And I’m wondering how that is influencing what you think you will see in the future by way of boundary violating behaviors and how we should be talking about that with youth serving organizations and with parents for that matter.

Luciana: Yeah. I wonder when we see that increase, for example, in K-12 educator section misconduct that includes non-contact abuse and includes some text messaging and all, I wonder if some has to do with that difference in cohorts and increased access to technology within the younger cohorts.

And, I think this is something that needs to be incorporated. We think that the codes of conduct as with any other behaviors in terms of what is expected and what is normal or is considered professional within the context of communication, using technology in terms of befriending someone on social media, in terms of communicating using your own personal cell phone probably is not okay. And I think this should be communicated to students and parents. Again, I think as a parent and I am a parent myself, you have this expectation that whatever is in the position of the authority has the best interest in mind. So, I think having that clarity of what is expected or not is very important.

Teresa: One of those things I was thinking about too, is during the pandemic. Once schools closed and there was so much at home learning and also hybrid arrangements and all of this, I think that some educators, and with the best of intentions, may have lowered boundaries a little bit, because I think, just informally, I’m in a neighborhood with a neighborhood school that’s half a block away for me. A lot of young kids, a lot of families. There seemed to be a lot of online and other contact going on just because kids were not actually going to the physical school, you know what I mean? So, folks were reaching out through messaging boards or social media or IMing or whatever. Now, hopefully most of that was parent to educator and not kid to educator.

But I wonder if perhaps some boundaries also got lowered during that time. And I wonder as we now are paying more attention to things like test scores, and lost educational gains during that time, and children’s mental health and the improvements we need to make there. Do we need to revisit the issue of, are there any rules that were loosened during that time around whether you captured those codes of conduct or just contact with children directly or other things, is it time to reexamine, you know, what those are and whether there are some things that maybe we did loosen up a little bit that need to be tightened up again?

Luciana: Yeah, that’s an interesting point. I think you are bringing that changing time and how we always talk about how, uh, codes of conduct and policies, they need to be very tailored to the organization mission, to the organization culture. I would say even to the organization location, if it’s in a rural locality or urban. And I think you bring that dimension of time and even other events like the pandemic and leaving the pandemic, I think there is a lot of things that we again need to reset and reconsider.

Teresa: So, when you think about mentioned earlier, your parent yourself, and you think about parents who may be listening to this podcast, is there any sort of guidance that you would give them in terms of things that they should be thinking about or asking questions about as They are allowing their children to participate in youth serving organizations or any of these other dimensions that you were talking about as well.

Luciana: Sure. I would say to be, even to ask the organization if they have any code of conduct that regulates the interaction between the adults in that organization and children. Sometimes organizations have codes of conduct for students, for example, for the youth participants. But looking really for that document, for that code of conduct that regulates those interactions, I think this is something that is really valuable. I think that education early on is important because about the violation, when it happens, it’s not always clear. I think sometimes it comes that discomfort and then you double-guess yourself, and then, so I think having that clarity beforehand, of course, not that the code of conduct is going to encompass all the types of interactions of behaviors, but still you are going to have already something there to pause at least or to be aware.

And, I think this is something important and even understanding having open lines of communication with the school, or the organization. I think this is something really important again, also because of all of those layers of authority, of expectations. I am an immigrant parent myself and I see the layer of sometimes doubt in an understanding what is expected in the U.S. So, I think it’s really important to really have clarity as, as early on.

Teresa: We are also speaking to a group of child abuse professionals, many of whom go out into schools and train in those settings, many of whom go out into the community and educate folks in the community, some of whom are asked to educate faith communities around child sexual abuse prevention.

Is there anything that you would say that just based not only on this piece of research, but just the wealth of knowledge that you have, that you would say, here’s the thing that I would just really recommend that you add to the work that you’re already doing when you have an opportunity in front of these audiences to talk about child sexual abuse prevention.

Luciana: Yeah. Yeah. That came to my mind, that million dollar question of what works. So, I’m not going to answer the question in that regard, but from my experience. So yeah, I would say really that positive framing in terms of, of fostering positive interactions that I think everyone, most people working in, in organizations want what is best for children.

And so, I think capitalizing on what’s already good in there and fostering. positive behaviors, professional behaviors, and moving away from what it is unprofessional and boundary violating behaviors. And I would say, really, I would frame this as boundary violating behaviors in that context of prevention and not so much like looking for grooming behaviors in that context.

Just because when you are looking for grooming in the context of prevention, you may try to prove something.  And to prove something, you may wait too long. So really like to try to be neutral in terms of we are trying to maintain professional behavior here. And this is why we are going to correct some deviations when certain behaviors happen.

Teresa: I think that if you are, whether you’re a professional or a parent, it’s much easier to talk to. an organization and say something like, my child got a text from so and so, and I know that you have a rule against that, and I just know that you would want to know about that boundary being violated, and so that you can follow up on that.

That feels easier than going, “this person reached out, I’m sure they’re trying to groom my child,” and that’s a much bigger and more difficult conversation, I think.

Luciana: Absolutely. And you probably would want to postpone or you would want to reconsider if you think there will be very heavy consequences for that person that text your child. So, I think making it easier to communicate about those boundaries, of course, we’re not talking about more severe.

Teresa: No, no, no, of course, but I really like the way that you’re talking about this is just lowering the barrier into that conversation when you see something concerning.  So, we’ve talked about a lot today, but is there anything else that I should have asked you and didn’t or anything that you wanted to make sure that we talked about today?

Luciana: Look, I really appreciate you personally to be here to talk with you. I think this study brings some light to prevention to show that when we take prevention seriously, we can, or organizations take prevention seriously, we can see reductions in child sexual abuse by adults. We can protect children. I think it gives some evidence to what we know. And I am really. Yeah, I really appreciate the opportunity.

Teresa: Luciana, this was so helpful. I always appreciate these conversations when it’s clear that, first of all, the actions, all this activity that we’ve all been so committed to is paying off in some areas and it gives us hope and energy for the next wave of action. So, thank you so much for all you’re doing in your research and come back anytime.

Luciana: Thank you, Teresa.

Teresa: Thanks for listening to One in Ten. If you like this episode, please share it with a friend or colleague and check us out on YouTube at NCAforCACs.  To find out more about this episode or any of our other ones, please visit our podcast website at oneintenpodcast.org.