CONCEPT PREVIEW: We address the development and implementation of an initial two-year, five-phase (Design through Implementation and Evaluation) of the “Stop the Silence® Comprehensive Child Sexual Abuse Training, Prevention, Mitigation, and Care Model (Model) in New Zealand, otherwise known as “Speak Up – Stop the Silence®”. The focus of the work follows on the work done by Stop the Silence®: Stop Child Sexual Abuse, Inc. (https://stopthesilence.org) in the U.S. and internationally (e.g., EU, Africa) for 20 years and then brought together into a comprehensive model with programming in collaboration with the government of Cyprus from 2014-2017, which is being used currently in New Zealand.
Stop the Silence® has focused on advocacy, education; training, and policy development and reform; advised numerous organizations and governments on program and service components; and carried out trainings for government managers/administrators, teachers, psychologists/ counselors/social workers/other therapists, lawyers and judges, police, clinicians, and members of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). While Cyprus is a small nation, it has, because of its size, provided an ideal place to carry out and test a comprehensive prevention, treatment, and mitigation model. The program is being adapted worldwide.
The vision and framework for the Model reflects and promotes a social movement through a widening audience of community members and trained professionals with the goal of reaching key policymakers, stakeholders, service providers (educators, police, social service workers) and societal members, to ultimately impact members of society overall and the outcomes and impact of CSA. The framework focuses on the planned expansion of the targeted “spheres of influence” that directly impact children’s well-being. In partnership with Trust MYRIVR in New Zealand (https://www.trustmyrivr.co.nz/), and planned elsewhere, we are expanding trainings and related programming and evaluating the outcomes of the Stop the Silence® community-wide onsite and online trainings and related agendas to improve child and adolescent, as well as, ultimately, adult and societal, health and well-being, including the address of the prevention of long-term disability and improved functioning.
Trust MYRIVR identifies the relevant key domestic stakeholders in New Zealand and provides access to the operational/ delivery arm of this joint initiative by: 1) Identifying the relevant provider to deliver Child Sexual Abuse Comprehensive Child Sexual Abuse Training, Prevention, Mitigation, and Care in New Zealand and 2) Providing the Trust MYRIVR App tool as a platform for technological connection to communities by capturing the community voice(s) of and feedback from local societal members via an app. The feedback gathered provides information to service providers about the changes needed in health/social service-delivery thinking and delivery. The capturing of data from communities enables real-time visibility of services to assist existing programs with which clients and staff are engaged and capture the interactive progress and outcomes from start to finish. The data captured will be analyzed by Trust MYRIVR partners at Massey University, which will also provide predictive modelling.