Review of Policies and Practices to Prevent Technology-Facilitated Child Sexual Abuse Within Youth-Serving Organizations in the United States.

Technology-facilitated child sexual abuse (TF-CSA), or child sexual abuse that occurs online or through electronic communication, is a preventable public health problem that can be addressed within youth-serving organizations (YSOs). This study is a review of a purposive sample of organizational pol...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Publicado en:Journal of Child Sexual Abuse Vol. 33; no. 5; pp. 545 - 565
Autores principales: McCain, Jessica L., Herbst, Jeffrey H., Merrill-Francis, Molly, Willis, Leigh A., Miedema, Stephanie Spaid, Shortt, Joann Wu
Formato: research tables/charts Journal Article
Publicado: Taylor & Francis Ltd Jul2024
Acceso en línea:Ver este registro en EBSCOhost
Descripción
Sumario:Technology-facilitated child sexual abuse (TF-CSA), or child sexual abuse that occurs online or through electronic communication, is a preventable public health problem that can be addressed within youth-serving organizations (YSOs). This study is a review of a purposive sample of organizational policies and practices designed to prevent TF-CSA collected from 13 national and local YSOs in the United States. Documents were coded to identify practices to prevent TF-CSA related to YSO activities or YSO staff, volunteers, or participants. Qualitative analysis indicated that YSOs included seven common practices to prevent TF-CSA in their documents. These practices included transparent electronic communication between youth and YSO staff; codes of conduct and online behavior agreements related to youth; monitoring the YSO's online presence; parental controls for youth online activity; safety behaviors for online activity for staff, parents, and youth; parent and youth trainings for youth online engagement and prevention of TF-CSA; and practices to address staff policy violations. Most prevention practices documented by YSOs identified in this study are consistent with emerging literature on TF-CSA prevention. Key gaps include protections for youth from groups inequitably burdened by TF-CSA and evaluation of the implementation and effectiveness of practices in preventing TF-CSA across settings and populations.