Child Protection Education and Training for Parents and Carers

Child abuse is a sensitive topic. One of the most challenging aspects of being a parent is preparing your child for the potential challenges that exist in the world. How do you achieve this without scaring them, ‘wrapping them in cotton wool’ or providing them with too much information?

The statistics on child abuse, and in particular child sexual abuse, are profoundly disturbing.

• Up to 30 percent of children experience some form of childhood sexual abuse and between five and 10 percent experience severe abuse (Ogloff, Cutajar, Mann & Mullen, 2012).
• One in seven victims, including both adults and children, of forcible sexual assault, are children under the age of six years, with four-year-olds at greatest risk (Snyder, 2000).
• Children with disabilities are up to seven times more likely to be sexually abused than their non-disabled peers (Briggs, 2006).

The good news is, talking to your children about how to help keep them safe from abuse, is not as hard as you think. The training we provide is not full of theory or information designed, so you leave scared witless. Yes, the statistics are scary, but our parents’ information session is specifically created, so you have the confidence and tools to start teaching this valuable information to your children straight away.

It is unrealistic to expect children to protect themselves against abuse. It is the job of parents and adults in our community to protect children; however, a trusted adult cannot be with a child all of the time, and that is why children need to understand the concepts of body safety to try and help keep them safe.

We hope your children are learning protective behaviours at their school. If they aren’t, you might want to enquire as to why not? The information you receive in our parent’s information session will compliment what your children are learning at school and provide you with the information you need to help reinforce the critical concepts of child abuse prevention education with your children. You will be given the skills to be able to incorporate the language of protective behaviours into the everyday conversations you have with your children and take advantage of those incidental learning opportunities to strengthen your child’s comprehension of body safety education.

Many potential dangers exist both in our community and online which may lead to child abuse. Many parents are not aware of some of these potential risks to their children. One of these dangers is the impact of children being exposed to pornography and the negative impact it has on a child’s emotional and cognitive development. In our training, you will receive the age-appropriate language to be able to talk with your children about pornography, and we will also discuss some of the significant cyber safety issues parents may face.

Would you know what to say to a child if they disclose to you that they have been sexually abused? Disclosure of abuse by a child can be a very confronting situation! In our training you will be given a simple script to remember, that will help both the child and you through this challenging situation.

Holly-ann Martin delivers all the training for Safe4Kids and has over 30 years experience in teaching child abuse prevention education. Holly will explain the concepts, strategies and language of protective behaviours and provide you with the skills necessary for you to be able to teach your children straight away. The knowledge you gain will not only empower you as a parent or carer, but it will also help you empower your children to keep them safe. For many, child abuse is a difficult topic to talk about, but with Holly’s experience, she can provide you with excellent information in a non-confronting way and draw on some entertaining stories she has gained over her 30 years of experience.

The parents’ information session is delivered over a two hours period. There is a lot of information covered, so to help you we have a Parents’ Guide to Child Protection Education book which will be available for sale at the end of the session and contains the key concepts covered during the training. Also available for sale are other child abuse prevention education resources. Alternatively, all of these resources are available for purchase in our online shop. If your partner or family members are not able to attend, we also have a Parents’ Information Session online course available, which contains all of the information covered in the face-to-face training and broken down into a series of small videos so that you can watch them at your leisure. For more information on what is included in the Parents’ Information Session online course, click on Online Courses under the heading Training and Courses or visit our online shop.

For more information and to discuss your specific training requirements, please don’t hesitate to contact us. – We are here to help you!