Responding To Children And Adolescents Who Have Been Sexually Abused

Sexual abuse of children and adolescents is a gross violation of their rights and a global public health problem. It adversely affects the health of children and adolescents. Health care providers are in a unique position to provide an empathetic response to children and adolescents who have been sexually abused. Such a response can go a long way in helping survivors recover from the trauma of sexual abuse. WHO has published new clinical guidelines Responding to Children and Adolescents Who Have Been Sexually Abused aimed at helping front-line health workers, primarily from low resource settings, in providing evidence-based, quality, trauma-informed care to survivors. The guidelines emphasize the importance of promoting safety, offering choices and respecting the wishes and autonomy of children and adolescents. They cover recommendations for post-rape care and mental health; and approaches to minimizing distress in the process of taking medical history, conducting examination and documenting findings.

`This book is a practical and supportive guide for the professionals facing this traumatic subject. [It] is easily readable′ - Journal of Child and Adolescent Mental Health `Therapeutic Work With Sexually Abused Children locates the practice experience of the authors within a rigorous theoretical framework and is a readable and useable guide to the complexities of helping children and adolescents who have suffered the trauma of sexual abuse′ - Youth & Policy `It is refreshing to find child therapists ready to engage with sexually abused children by incorporating trauma theory and research, addressing child protection and seeing themselves as part of a team that includes the carers. The authors provide an overview of phases of treatment, theoretical considerations and essential skills. They emphasize the importance of relationship and explore its impact on the therapist. Their approach is creative and child-centered. Case vignettes, poems and exercises promote empathy with the child′s perspective. There is a useful chapter on cultural issues and the needs of children in alternative care... this is an excellent primer for the child′s helping network′ - Community Care `This is an excellent book for workers seeking to respond more effectively to child victims of abuse′ - David Pearson, Caring Magazine Therapeutic Work with Sexually Abused Children is a creative and practical guide for professionals working directly with those who have suffered sexual abuse and for their carers. The trauma of sexual abuse experienced in childhood can be severe and enduring. Therapeutic support is offered to help both the child and the family cope with psychological or emotional difficulties both currently and in later life. Therapists must be able to respond effectively to the child victim in a sensitive and timely way which prioritizes the needs of each child. Drawing on their experience as practitioners, the authors explore the reactions which children commonly experience following abuse and examine the tasks of the therapist in responding to them. This book explores the counselling of children who have been abused rather than adult survivors of child abuse. The book will benefit from the combined experiences of one US author and one UK author.

This text presents the many challenges for the therapists working with children and adolescents who have suffered abuse. It covers the reluctance of victims to talk about the abuse, helping victims to work through resistance, and more.

This easy-to-follow manual presents techniques for working with groups of children who have been sexually abused. It begins with an overview of the theory and literature of group therapy with children and then offers seven sections on psycho-social skill building techniques, trust building, self esteem, identifying and expressing feelings, healing the inner child, relationships, boundary setting, and prevention skills.

If you′re looking for new and innovative ways of working with survivors of child and adolescent sexual abuse--or child/juvenile perpetrators of sexual abuse--then look no further. Mic Hunter and a talented team of professionals begin by offering concise, practical discussions on topics related to survivors, including managing self-regulation disorders in sexually abused boys, treating ritual abuse survivors, and inpatient treatment of adolescent survivors of sexual abuse. Next, the contributors focus on treating the child/juvenile offender, examining such issues as treating abuse reactive children, parallel treatment for parents of abuse reactive children, societal responses to sexually aggressive children, and identifying and responding to juvenile sexual abuse offenders. For each issue examined, contributors offer concrete directions for intervention. Written both for practitioners and advanced clinical students, this accessibly written volume will serve as a valuable resource. "This book is like going to a conference and getting all the best presentations. . . . Models a nice concrete technique for use with a problem population." --Sandra K. Hewitt, Ph.D., Private Practice, Edina, Minnesota "This excellent short paperback contains well-written, well-referenced chapters by leading figures in the field of child abuse and neglect, covering an ambitious range of topics involving child survivors as well as children who sexually abuse other children. This small book is a timely and important addition to the sexual abuse literature, and will be of particular interest to those professionals working with children and young people who show sexually coercive or abusing behaviour towards other children." --Eileen Vizard in Young Minds Newsletter "The book is subtitled "treatment innovations" and this sets the tone for its whole approach. This is a readable and practical book written for clinicians, and is obviously based on much solid clinical experience. The chapter on ritual abuse is particularly good, being both readable and thought provoking. It is a very thorough examination of the difficulties which can arise in working with severely abused people, and tackles very realistically the potential risks for both client and therapist, when working with very damaged individuals. The thorny issues surrounding the validity of recovered memories are also tackled extremely well. Overall the book is an excellent review of current understanding and treatment of sexually abused children and adolescents. However, clinicians working with adult survivors of abuse will also find much that is useful in the book." --Carol Sellars in Clinical Psychology Forum

The Guidelines on promotive and preventive mental health interventions for adolescents - Helping Adolescents thrive (HAT), provide evidence-informed recommendations on psychosocial interventions to promote mental health, prevent mental disorders, and reduce self-harm and other risk behaviours among adolescents. The HAT Guidelines aims to inform policy development, service planning and the strengthening of health and education systems, and facilitate mainstreaming of adolescent mental health promotion and prevention strategies across sectors and delivery platforms.

The treatment of sexually abused children between the ages of 7 and 12 present a unique clinical challenge. These victims are in the developmental phase of latency where post-traumatic discomfort and internal conflict are often manifested in self-destructive, sexually inappropriate, and aggressive behavior toward adults and peers. Often unresponsive to interventions that require direct verbal communication, these children need special therapeutic approaches to master feelings of shame, helplessness, responsibility, anger, and sadness, which are concomitant with sexual abuse and disclosure. Group treatment has been shown to be an important component of healing for these children. This volume is the first book on the treatment of sexual abuse that is devoted exclusively to a group treatment approach. GROUP TREATMENT FOR SEXUALLY ABUSED CHILDREN considers the impact of sexual molestation and disclosure on latency-aged children and provides a step-by-step guide to a comprehensive program for victims and their non-offending caretakers. Establishing a therapeutic framework that enables both children and adults to deal with anxiety producing material, themes addressed in a sequence of progressive difficulty. More than a description of a program, this manual offers actual interventions to be used with children and their non-offending caretakers, including guidelines for anticipating and responding therapeutically to expected resistances. The structured curriculum, which consists of ten modules, presents a variety of activities that assist children and adults to begin to identify and express their conflicts and feelings. Each module delineates the Purpose, Objectives, Therapeutic Considerations, Activities and Treatment Challenges for children and their caretakers. Each activity for children incorporates group topics for the caretakers' group which parallel the material presented in the children's group. This approach integrates the treatment, increasing the likelihood of a successful experience for the children. Illustrative case examples are offered to demonstrate how children and adults respond to the activities. Unique features of this program include its attention to the important developmental tasks for children as well as the sequelae of sexual molestation; its respect for the ways in which boys and girls respond differently to sexual trauma; and its inclusion of over 40 original handouts for children and caretakers which may be photocopied for use in your practice. An ideal resource, the structure and variety of original materials in this outstanding volume provide direction and focus for all therapists who are dedicated to the recovery of sexually abused children and their families. Further, many of the handouts are useful for individual and family treatment and, with some modifications, can also be used in work with adolescents. As an added convenience, all the forms in this manual may be photocopied for use in your practice

Each year, child protective services receive reports of child abuse and neglect involving six million children, and many more go unreported. The long-term human and fiscal consequences of child abuse and neglect are not relegated to the victims themselves -- they also impact their families, future relationships, and society. In 1993, the National Research Council (NRC) issued the report, Under-standing Child Abuse and Neglect, which provided an overview of the research on child abuse and neglect. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research updates the 1993 report and provides new recommendations to respond to this public health challenge. According to this report, while there has been great progress in child abuse and neglect research, a coordinated, national research infrastructure with high-level federal support needs to be established and implemented immediately. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research recommends an actionable framework to guide and support future child abuse and neglect research. This report calls for a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to child abuse and neglect research that examines factors related to both children and adults across physical, mental, and behavioral health domains--including those in child welfare, economic support, criminal justice, education, and health care systems--and assesses the needs of a variety of subpopulations. It should also clarify the causal pathways related to child abuse and neglect and, more importantly, assess efforts to interrupt these pathways. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research identifies four areas to look to in developing a coordinated research enterprise: a national strategic plan, a national surveillance system, a new generation of researchers, and changes in the federal and state programmatic and policy response.