“Child sexual abuse can be prevented and treated with a conscious and sustained effort.” ~Dr. Pamela Pine
OVERVIEW
Stop the Silence® and the National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse (NAASCA) have joined in a partnership toward the development of the “Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) Survivor Force”– an expanding (locally, regionally, nationally, internationally) group of adult survivors who are coming together to present information about child sexual abuse (CSA) to the media in all regions of the U.S. and abroad.
The full Mission of the CSA Survivor Force is to provide factual information about CSA in a gripping manner to all forms of mass media to inform and educate large populations, reduce stigma, and affect change in individual and societal behaviors, policies and procedures across the U.S. and the world.
Survivors Force members use their own stories and local topics and/or other issues as the “hook” to get to the media, and then, once engaged, provide pre-determined, gripping messages about CSA that reduce the stigma and sensationalistic aspects out of the issue, and increase awareness, understanding, prevention, treatment, and mitigation. Stop the Silence is committed to offer resources, help and moral support to each CSA Survivor Force member/advocate as they expand their outreach efforts.
Currently, we are vetting the program and focusing on further programming/planning which will include an increasing number of survivors from all over the United States, ultimately leading to international expansion, as participating CSA Survivor Force members spread information through the media to ever-increasing publics.
What do CSA Survivor Force members do?
• CSA Survivor Force members identify what populations they want to reach and identify why (e.g., because a population does not have relevant information, and/or because they are over-represented in terms of CSA (e.g., poor people are), and/or because a particular media is accessible and it would be easy to begin to work with them.)
• CSA Survivor Force members make lists of local, and/or state and/or regional papers and radio and TV stations (each Survivor starts small and continues to build to bigger and bigger media depending on comfort level and desire or “take it on”).
• CSA Survivor Force members identify relevant basics on each media that they are trying to reach, i.e., readership, listenership, viewership – how many people they reach, who are they (black, white, Hispanic, young, old, male, female, rich, poor, where they live, etc.).
• CSA Survivor Force members chart information for the individual media including which departments the Survivor wants to reach (e.g., it could be some or all of the following depending on the size of the media outlet: public outreach and/or service staff, public interest, local news, specific focus editors, etc.) and charts the contact information of the media target(s) (names, contact info including email and telephone numbers).
• CSA Survivor Force members identify what they want to say to the media about themselves and their personal stories, as well as issues presenting in their geographic policy or other situations.
• CSA Survivor Force members write up their “pitch” as well as their bios (Please see list of advocates/members below)
• CSA Survivor Force members contact the media targeted with well-worded email(s) and follow that up with telephone calls until they reach their “target” media outlets and get their story told!
• CSA Survivor Force members move on to other outlets – until we inundate the media outlets and educate wide publics through active community involvement. CSA Survivor Force members/advocates participate in local county and state fairs, festivals and other events, providing high visibility awareness and encouragement to people from all walks of life.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
CSA Survivor Force – factsheet – (1 pg) Word Doc PDF file
CSA Survivor Force – factsheet – (2 pgs) Word Doc PDF file
Why Survivors Often Don’t Tell for Years – PDF file
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MEMBERS/ADVOCATES, CSA Survivor Force
Click on the name below to access each advocate’s bio and contact info:
- Pamela Pine – CEO/founder of Stop the Silence® – local, national, international – DC/Maryland based
- Jillian Short – International Spokesperson for Stop the Silence® – DC/Maryland based
- Mary Beth Holzwarth – South Dakota
- Stacy Gleiss – Michigan / Northern Indiana / Japan based activist
- Brittany Laney – Ohio
- Rachel Grant – San Francisco, Ca
- Carol D Levine – New Jersey
- Elizabeth Sullivan – Minnesota
- Tammy Shoffstall – Florida
- Michael Broussard – Philadelphia, PA
- Kim Lakin (Creger) – Colorado
- Cindy Mordachai – Ohio
- Patrick Dati – Chicago, IL
- Patricia (Trish) McKnight – St. Louis, MO
- Valarie Meola – Maryland
- Louise Marie Cutshaw – Tennessee
- Karen Blodgett – Massachusetts
- Darla Gooden – Texas
- Elizabeth Sorvillo – New York
- Debra Staub – Arizona
- Maryellen Spoonhower – Upstate New York
- Natalie Holder – Washington State
- Tommy Womeldorf – Arizona
- Gale Cerel – Nevada
- Bill Murray – NAASCA founder- national – Los Angeles, CA based