Child Sexual Abuse

Who are we?

The Children’s Alliance Center of Berks County is a service of Opportunity House that serves child victims of sexual abuse under the age of 18. The CAC strives to reduce the trauma of children who disclose the abuse by providing a unique mulit-disciplinary response to child abuse by enabling law enforcement, prosecutors, child protective services, victim advocacy agencies and the medical and mental health professions to work together as a collaborative team to investigate and prosecute cases of child abuse.

The CAC of Berks County is an accredited member of the National Children’s Alliance (NCA) which is located in Washington, DC. The following program components are necessary for accredited membership in the National Children’s Alliance…

• Child Appropriate/Child Centered Facility
• Multidisciplinary Team (MDT)
• Organizational Capacity
• Cultural Competency and Diversity
• Forensic Interviews
• Medical Evaluations
• Therapeutic Intervention
• Victim Support/Advocacy
• Case Review
• Case Tracking

What is our objective?

In response to the emerging child advocacy center model, the CAC of Berks County opened in July 2004 to provide a coordinated community response to child sexual abuse. By providing comprehensive services to children and families, the CAC prevents further sexual victimization of children by recognizing the patterns of offenders, achieving successful prosecution and providing medical and mental health evaluations to prevent them from becoming future offenders. Necessary medical, emotional, legal, investigative, and victim advocacy services exist in one child centered location to ensure that children are not further victimized by the systems intended to protect them.

Partnerships:

• BCCYS
• Berks County DA Office
• Berks County Detective’s Office
• Local police departments
• Berks Women in Crisis
• Reading Hospital and Medical Center
• All About Women
• Reading Pediatrics
• Wyomissing Pediatrics
• Berks Counseling Associates
• Pennsylvania Counseling Services
• Service Access and Management

Preventing Sexual Abuse:

• Set and respect boundaries
  Everyone has the right to privacy in dressing, bathing, sleeping and other personal activities. Children should also be taught to respect the privacy of others.
• Teach children how to say ‘No’
  Let children know that they will be respected when it comes to playing, tickling, hugging or kissing. If a child does not want to kiss Grandma, parents should let them shake Grandma’s hand instead.
• Teach children about okay touch vs inappropriate touch
  For younger children, it is important to teach concrete rules such as ‘talk with me if anyone touches parts of the body normally covered by a bathing suit’.
• Explain the difference between a secret and a surprise
  Surprises are joyful and generate excitement in anticipation of being revealed after a short period of time. Secrets exclude others, often because the information will create upset or anger.
• Talk to children about sex, including the proper names for body parts, and talk to them about personal safety This should begin at a very young age and advance as the child gets older.
• Teach children to practice good personal safety behaviors For example, children who participate in activities like Girl Scout cookies should have an adult accompany them. Parents should question children about their activities, where they have been, and be aware of with whom they are spending their time.

Know the Signs of Abuse:
If abused, your child may…

• Have difficulty walking or sitting
• Suddenly refuse to go with certain people
• Become upset when they are touched casually
• Suddenly become withdrawn, sad or irritable
• Complain of stomach aches or other vague physical complaints
• Suddenly begin acting younger than their age – expressing behaviors like bed wetting, clinging behaviors, etc
• Changes in behavior, including extreme mood swings, withdrawal, fearfulness and excessive crying
• Sleep problems and/or nightmares
• Fear of being alone
• Onset of poor personal hygiene
• Wearing excessive layers of clothing
• Hiding stained or blood clothing
• Secretiveness
• Depression of withdrawal from family or friends, including active hostility and anger toward a formerly trusted person
• Precocious sexual knowledge or behavior atypical for their age, including having knowledge of specific sexual acts or explicit sexual language
• Excessive masturbation
• Engaging in adult-like sexual contact with other children
• A specific fear of males or females
• Seductive behavior towards adults of opposite sex
• Unusual interest or avoidance of all things of a sexual nature
• Refusal to got to school or poor performance in school
• Delinquency or conduct problems
• Unusual aggressiveness

The greatest risk comes from friends and family, not strangers. 93 % of victims know their abusers. A child molester is usually:

• A trusted adult or older teen, often a close friend or family member
• Someone with access to children, such as a babysitter, neighbor or coach.
• A skillful manipulator, willing to use any trick he or she can including lavish gifts, force, guilt, lies about the child’s family, threats to the child’s family, or using child victims to ‘recruit’ new victims.

Experts estimate that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys are sexually abused before their 18th birthdays.

• 67% of all reported sexual assaults happen to children 17 and under.
• For the year 2009, the Children’s Alliance Center of Berks County conducted 262 Forensic Interviews
• For the year 2009, Berks County Children and Youth Services reported…
  • 71 Sexual Abuse cases
  • 173 Abuse cases (Physical Abuse, etc)
  • 114 General Neg Sexual Abuse cases

To Report Suspected Child Abuse, please call Child Line…
1-800-932-0313

Contact us
• 610-898-0535

National Children’s Alliance (NCA)
www.nca-online.org

Find us/Google Maps
• 50 North 4th Street, Reading PA 10601