TPC Journal-Vol 9 Issue 3-FULL

206 The Professional Counselor | Volume 9, Issue 3 Intervention is stressed. Participants emphasized how too much focus is often placed on the intervention of CSA, whereas more attention needs to be focused on prevention. When discussing what he would tell people when explaining why CSA prevention is important, one participant said he would invite them to visit juvenile court and watch as he puts a child on the stand who must disclose CSA. He challenges people to think about how these children must find the courage to relive their experience all over again on the witness stand “in front of the judge, in front of the jury, in front of strangers . . . then you tell me how important it is that we educate our kids about child sexual abuse prevention.” Another participant said, “I think that as the general population becomes more educated about the fact that you can prevent the issue from happening, I think they could see that it’s more important to put money into prevention than treating something.” This participant went on to explain the importance of “getting people interested in prevention more than just putting the fire out once the fire starts . . . I think people wait until it’s too late and then they rather put out the fire and until it becomes a fire, they don’t want to have to deal with it.” A third participant shared similar thoughts: “It needs to be more preventive and more proactive and we need to start talking about it.” Community support. Community support was identified by participants as being difficult to come by but essential to the successful implementation of CSA prevention programs. One participant discussed how “there are so many fundraisers . . . and you have to pick and choose what you are passionate about,” noting that not too many people choose to support CSA prevention. Another participant discussed the importance of networking with community partners in order to gain additional support. In particular, he highlighted the importance of developing trust between the organization and community partners. He stated, “When you know a person and you have a relationship with a person, it’s easier to trust them to always do the right thing.” A third participant discussed his personal efforts related to attempting to gain additional community support: “Every opportunity I get to talk to a person about the program, I do . . . I ask them to get in touch with me if they have any questions.” Discussion In this study, the participants emphasized that addressing the often taboo topic of sexual abuse with children is imperative. They discussed how the topic of sexual abuse is frequently avoided, especially by parents and guardians—a trend that is confirmed by the professional literature (Kenny et al., 2008). The participants noted that this avoidance hinders opportunities for both prevention and intervention in the lives of children. Notably, with education, parents and guardians are empowered to teach their children about ways to avoid sexual abuse. These discussions are crucial to preventing harm to children and providing them with the knowledge and awareness they need to protect themselves. Additionally, participants discussed how the focus on “stranger danger” by parents neglects the most common perpetrators of sexual abuse—acquaintances. Deblinger, Thakkar-Kolar, Berry, and Schroeder (2010) supported this finding, as they also found that the parents who discuss CSA with their children can erroneously focus on the dangers of interacting with strangers and not with individuals the child may already know. Additionally, Deblinger et al. found that the number of parents who stated that they desired to educate their children about CSA at home was more than those who had actually followed through with this task. Therefore, parents may lack the knowledge they need in order to adequately address this issue with their children. Professional school counselors are in an ideal position to help fill this void by developing educational opportunities for parents and guardians, so they feel better equipped to talk with their children about CSA. It would be prudent to include information about perpetrators so that parents do not solely focus on strangers when discussing safety with their children.