{"id":251,"date":"2021-11-23T19:46:24","date_gmt":"2021-11-23T19:46:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/afccenter.org\/?page_id=251"},"modified":"2021-11-24T00:59:44","modified_gmt":"2021-11-24T00:59:44","slug":"the-introduction-to-there-is-hope","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/afccenter.org\/index.php\/the-introduction-to-there-is-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"The Introduction to “There is Hope”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Hopefulness Evolves<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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There Is Hope! for Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse<\/u>\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a9<\/p>\n

Click here<\/em><\/a>\u00a0to download a copy of the article \u201cThere is Hope! for Adult Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse \u00a9\u201d<\/p>\n

Introduction\u00a0<\/strong>[Edited: 04\/11\/2020]<\/p>\n

\u201cNonetheless, we are missing the boat!\u201d<\/p>\n

At this point in our history, as a society, we are finally addressing sexuality and sexual abuse issues more openly.\u00a0 This is, indeed, important progress.\u00a0 In our homes, we undoubtedly are doing a better job of teaching our children about sexuality than past generations did.\u00a0 In our pre-schools and kindergartens, our educators have been teaching our children about \u201cGood Touch, Bad Touch\u201d.\u00a0 And societally, we more frequently have utilized kids\u2019 television show characters to encourage our children to maintain personal safety from \u201cthem\u201d, avoiding those \u2018bad strangers\u2019 who may be out there.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven so, we are still missing the boat!\u201d \u00a0\u00a0In 2021, we should know and do better!<\/p>\n

Surely, there have been victims whose sexual assault was perpetrated by a primarily unknown or a completely unknown stranger.\u00a0 A little boy who was pulled into a stranger\u2019s car.\u00a0 A teenager who is raped by someone who was breaking-and-entering into her home.\u00a0 A college woman assaulted on campus by a stalker.\u00a0 A young partier, slipped a date-rape drug at a party or in a bar, is rendered confused, vulnerable, and is sexually assaulted.\u00a0 Certainly, there are some dangerous strangers out there.\u00a0 As a result, we all do have to be aware of our surroundings and be sensibly vigilant in unfamiliar settings.\u00a0 And we do need to teach our kids about maintaining their personal safety from strangers.<\/p>\n

In 2021, we do know better!\u00a0 The #MeToo movement has highlighted the manipulative and immoral behaviors of far too many men in positions of power, some of whom have been knocked from their lofty roles and credibility.\u00a0 However, since much of the news has focused on the immorality and manipulative behaviors, confrontation, and the fall of a number of rich and famous men \u2013 gymnastics\u2019 MD Larry Nassar, UPenn\u2019s Jerry Sandusky, and rapper R. Kelly \u00a0\u2014 we are still not adequately accepting the well-documented reality that, in our own communities, it is not primarily \u2018stranger-danger\u2019 that places our children at risk.\u00a0 We must provide parents, educators, and kids with adequate information about the dangers from the molestation, rape, and incest by the \u2018non-stranger\u2019.\u00a0 The website of RAINN \u2013 Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network \u2013 indicates that an estimated 93% of perpetrators of sexual abuse are known to the child.\u00a0 About 34% of perpetrators are family members, ~59% are acquaintances and only about 7% of perpetrators of child sexual abuse are strangers to the child.\u00a0[1]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Whether you are reading\u00a0There Is Hope!<\/u>\u00a0as a survivor yourself \u2026 or out of your concern for someone about whom you care \u2026 sadly, you probably will agree.<\/p>\n

These have been the titles of some of these non-strangers, in \u201ctrusted roles\u201d \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cFather\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cMother\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cBrother\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cSister\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cGrandfather\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cStep-Father\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cUncle\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cCousin\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cMom\u2019s Live-in Boy Friend\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cFoster brother\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cBabysitter\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u201cNeighbor\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cFamily Friend\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cDoctor\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cTeacher\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u201cClergyman\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cCoach\u201d \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cScout Leader\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cCounselor\u201d\u00a0 \u201cPoliceman\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cFireman\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cBus Driver\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2026<\/p>\n

\u2026 the titles of the \u201ctrusted roles\u201d of the vast majority of perpetrators whose innocent victims we therapists have assisted in their healing in our counseling practices, agencies, and institutions.<\/p>\n

From my over fifty years of work in social services \u2014 working for the New Bedford YMCA, the Waltham Boys\u2019 Club, and the Jewish Community Centers in Massachusetts and Connecticut, in the Meriden Public Schools as a Certified School Social Worker, and in our private practice as the Director and a Connecticut Licensed Clinical Social Worker \u2014 I can regretfully attest to the fact that it is not \u2018the strangers\u2019 who pose the greatest danger to our children.\u00a0 In the Adolescent & Family Counseling Center, our forty-year-old multi-disciplinary outpatient mental health private practice in Central Connecticut, many dozens of our therapy cases have involved our treating adult clients who have reported to their clinicians that they had been sexually molested, abused, or raped as children.\u00a0 Rather than being molested by \u2018a stranger\u2019, over 95% of the female clients who reported having been sexually victimized were sexually abused by \u201ca known and supposedly trustworthy\u201d male.\u00a0 Of our male clients who shared with us having been sexually victimized, with only one exception, each man has revealed that his sexual abuse victimization was by \u201ca known and supposedly trustworthy\u201d male or female perpetrator.\u00a0 Our skilled professional staff members \u2014 with extensive and diverse experience working in public and parochial schools, hospitals and residential treatment centers, child guidance clinics, child protection agencies, colleges and universities, the court system and in prisons, and at community recreational and social services agencies \u2014 concur that this has been an accurate representation of what clients have reported to them, in every setting in which they have served clients.<\/p>\n

Certainly, it is not my intent to paint all of us men with the same, dark brush!\u00a0 Despite all the faults that we males may have, most of us men are appropriately honorable, trustworthy, and protective of children \u2014 our own kids and the children of others.\u00a0 However, both as a man and as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Certified School Social Worker, I have been very embarrassed and extremely apologetic for what some men have done to children. \u00a0I am appalled that \u2014 due to a combination of genetics, hormones, testosterone, societal messages, their own victimization, mental illness, or significant family-of-origin dysfunction \u2014 some men have perpetrated great harm, trauma, and lifelong damage to the bodies, self-esteem, trust, and functioning of their victims.\u00a0 Yes, there are female child sexual abuse perpetrators, too.\u00a0 However, according to the University of New Hampshire\u2019s Crimes Against Children Research Center, \u201cstudies using the law enforcement as well as victim self-report data found that more than 90% of the perpetrators of sexual offenses against minors were male\u201d.\u00a0[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Many of their victims have been their own daughters, sons, sisters, or brothers \u2026 and some of the initial sexual abuse had begun when these girls or boys were preschoolers, several as young as 3 years of age.<\/p>\n

The International Society for the Study of Trauma and Dissociation, of which I have become a member, announced the opening for the 2015 conference in Australia: \u201cBROKEN STRUCTURES, BROKEN SELVES: COMPLEX TRAUMA IN THE 21st<\/sup>CENTURY: Addressing Complex Trauma in children, adolescents, adults, families & society.<\/a>\u201d\u00a0 The ISSTD described it goals in the announcement:\u00a0 \u201cIncreasing public awareness, empowering victims and sufferers, providing continuing education for clinicians who work in the field of relational trauma.\u201d\u00a0[3]<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>In this book,\u00a0There Is Hope!<\/u>, my goals are very similar:<\/p>\n