Preventing School Employee Sexual Misconduct with Students: An Evaluation of an Ecological Model

• In Event: Panel Overview to Describe CDC-Supported Research Studies that Rigorously Evaluate Approaches to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse (CSA)

Abstract

The purpose of this project is to evaluate an ecological model of prevention of school employee sexual misconduct of students. This approach to prevention places the responsibility of creating and maintaining a safe culture for children on the adults in the organization.

Background
Armatus® Learn to Protect is a training program for all staff, with different modules developed for the different obligations of adults who work in schools. The approach identifies policies must be in place, how to enforce policies, careful hiring and screening of new employees, addressing and stopping sexual and physical boundary crossing, acknowledging, investigating, and reporting boundary crossings as gateways to sexual abuse, and monitoring staff who violate boundary requirements and codes of conduct with appropriate sanctions that reflect the seriousness of these actions.

Design
The design employs multi-stage random cluster sampling from 95 school districts. Schools will be randomly assigned to treatment and delayed intervention control. Data includes pre-post surveys; interviews with administrators; and content analysis of policies, Title IX reports, allegations of misconduct.

Findings
We will report on ore-training data from educators to identify internal and external inhibitors for appropriate behaviors, ability to intervene, and motivation and ability to report.

Authors

• Charol Shakeshaft, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Kellie Carlyle, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Emiola Oyefuga, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Abigail Conley, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Carter Timon, Child USA

• Robert Perera, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Sharyn Dougherty, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Maggie Wallace, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Jill Ruck, Child USA