Here is a guest blog by Cordelia Anderson and Joan Tabachnick, co-hosts of the Ending Child Sexual Abuse (ECSA) Web Conference Series that PreventConnect is co-sponsoring with Ms. Foundation for Women.
The Ms. Foundation for Women (MFW) has made the courageous decision to direct a significant portion of its resources towards ending child sexual abuse. Monique Hoeflinger, Senior Program Officer, Safety at the Ms. Foundation laid the ground work for why MFW chose this issue as one of its priorities by saying,
“Ending child sexual abuse is one of the most strategic things we can do to improve the lives of women and communities.”
Given the frequency of sexual abuse against children and the life-long impact of that abuse, focusing on child sexual abuse prevention makes sense. Among the approaches that MFW supports are those that move beyond traditional child-focused strategies and instead, engage adults and communities in prevention efforts.
As just one part of their broad efforts, the Ending Child Sexual Abuse (ECSA) Web Conference Series is designed to bring the best thinking, programs, and insights they have seen to a larger community of stakeholders. Through this exciting new partnership with us (Cordelia and Joan), Prevent-Connect, and most importantly – all of you – we hope to build a stronger and more effective movement to end child sexual abuse. The goals of this series are to:
- Raise visibility and dialogue within prevention community
- Engage new communities in this movement
- Increase knowledge, resources and strategic action on child sexual abuse
Over the next nine months, we plan to cover the following exciting topics:
- Including Child Sexual Abuse in the Sexual Violence Prevention Movement (May 3, 2012)
- Using Media to End Child Sexual Abuse (June 7, 2012)
- Preventing the Perpetration of Child Sexual Abuse (July 19, 2012)
- Voices of Experience: the role of direct experiences in social change (August 30, 2012)
- Healthy Sexuality and Caring Connections: Foundations for Prevention (September 10, 2012)
- The Role of Arts in Ending Child Sexual Abuse (October 10, 2012)
- Depictions of children in media and pornography: Implications for prevention (November 14, 2012)
- After Sandusky: What we have learned to prevent child sexual abuse in youth-serving organizations (November 19, 2012)
- Policy changes that help and hinder our ability to end child sexual abuse (December 10, 2012)
Look on the MFW or the PreventConnect websites for dates and time and more details. And if you miss one of them, don’t worry! Both the slides and recordings of the sessions are available to anyone.
We hope you will join us for one of these future web conferences. Sign-up to learn more about upcoming sessions.

More Posts by David Lee
David S. Lee, MPH, is the Director of Prevention Services at the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault where he provides training and technical assistance on prevention. David manages the national project PreventConnect, an online community of violence against women prevention practitioners, funders, researchers and activists. For over 27 years David has worked in efforts to end domestic violence and sexual assault.
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