Sexual abuse of minors in Vermont has become a serious issue, and the state is hoping that protection in the form of prevention will provide a framework for educators and early-child-care providers to help safeguard pupils from pre-kindergarden through secondary school.
Act 1, passed by the Vermont Legislature last year, places emphasis on education, requiring schools and licensed day care centers to teach about sexual abuse to children with an age-appropriate health curriculum beginning in preschool.
But the act has other intentions as well.
According the the legislation, its purpose “is to increase child sexual abuse prevention efforts, enhance investigations and prosecutions of child sexual abuse, provide sentencing courts with the information necessary to devise appropriate sentences for sex offenders, and improve supervision of sex offenders.”
State Department of Children and Families Commissioner Steve Dale stated in a recent press release that the sexual assault and murder of 12-year-old Brooke Bennett in 2008 provided the impetus for a renewed focus on the issue - a focus that culminated in Act 1.
“The new law calls upon government officials to attack this issue in new ways, including increased record checks, new options for prosecution, specialized probation officers, and new special investigation units connected to law enforcement,” Dale wrote.
Act 1 emphasizes three areas of approach - educating children about sexual abuse and sexual violence, educating staff and volunteers about child sexual abuse, and reaching out to the community.
Bellows Falls Police Chief Ron Lake said that can only be a good thing.
“Even two is too many,” Lake said, speaking of substantiated reports of child sexual abuse.
However, he doesn't see any change from his end in Bellows Falls. Because of budget cuts, “We had to let our [school resource officer] go,” Lake said.
The school resource officer “works on teacher/student relationships, juvenile behavior, juvenile drug and alcohol abuse and bullying,” said Lake, who is concerned about the absence of this community resource for building awareness of safety issues in school, at home and on the streets.
While most middle and secondary schools have health officers and dedicated health curriculums, most elementary and preschools have neither. It is hit or miss whether children learn about the difference between “good touching” and “bad touching” or know an adult to whom they can report behavior that makes them feel uncomfortable before they reach middle school, where these issues begin to be addressed in health curriculums.
Act 1 addresses this deficit.
Windham Northeast Supervisory Union Assistant Superintendent Chris Kibbe said that in elementary school, the responsibility for the existing health curriculum is shared via the school nurse, the physical education teacher, the classroom teacher, and the guidance counselor.
Asked if any part of the curriculum is geared specifically toward prevention of sexual abuse, Kibbe said “not specifically. They learn about good touch/bad touch, and that if a situation makes them uncomfortable, who they can go to and tell.”
“We've done a ton of curriculum work over the last year or two on the four core literacy requirements,” Kibbe explained. “The next step now is to put the health curriculum in place. It will be a lot of hard work, but I think we can do it.”
Kibbe said the district just received notification of the law and didn't really have any idea how the mandate would be implemented by the state's July 1, 2011, deadline.
“I've got 122 pages I need to read first,” he said. “I'm sure we'll be addressing this soon.”
Statistics, fallout of abuse
In the Vermont Department of Public Health's Springfield District, comprising 16 municipalities, including the Windham County towns of Grafton, Londonderry, Rockingham, and Windham, 33 substantiated reports of sexual abuse against minors were confirmed in 2009: 21 percent in Rockingham, 29 percent in Springfield, and 50 percent in the rest of the district towns.
Statewide, in 2009, 14,488 calls were made to the child protection hotline, of which 2,831 investigations were opened by the Department of Children and Families. Of those, 124 reports were in the Brattleboro district, 217 in the Springfield district, and 293 in the Rutland district. Sixteen of those reports in Brattleboro were for sexual abuse, 33 in Springfield, and 10 in Rutland.
Child protection and social services, special education, and court costs have increased as a result each year statewide.
While females outnumber sexual abuse victims 2 to 1, sexual abuse of minors has been substantiated in infants before the age of a year old.
The ages of most substantiated victims in sexual abuse cases range from 5 to 15 years old, with the highest substantiated reports of sexual abuse being at the ages of 13 and 15 years old.
Abused children are challenged developmentally and suffer lifelong difficulties with relating to others, often ending up living on the fringes of society with a multitude of physical and mental-health problems.
These children are victimized, usually by a family member or friend of the family who takes advantage of their vulnerability, dependence and trust in adult guidance. As a result of this violation, they live changed lives and will never know their full potential.
Kibbe said that he sees many children at risk because of their family situations.
“I know this is a big problem here,” Kibbe said. “We have parents with mental health issues and drug and alcohol problems that affect children in many different ways. These kinds of situations can sometimes lead to parenting problems.”
However, Margo Bryce, a DCF deputy compact administrator, said that the situation in Windham Northeast schools is not an anomaly and that she didn't “know that it's any different anywhere else in the state.”
How Act 1 works
With Act 1 mandated by the state, the legislature is hoping to see a change through prevention.
The “prevention” section of Act 1 is intended to stop abuse before it happens. The initiative was first mandated through the Vermont Approach, a five-year multidisciplinary sexual-violence prevention plan for the state, following two violent incidents that got the legislature's attention in 2006.
According to a piece at the time in the University of Vermont's publication, University Communications, the first incident, which drew national attention, “was the conviction of a Williston man who sexually abused a young girl. He was initially sentenced to 60 days in jail, a term that raised a national furor and left Vermont legislators vowing to strengthen the law.”
“Around the same time,” the piece recounts, “a man who had received a five-month jail sentence 15 years earlier after confessing to the rape of a young girl was accused of killing a 29-year-old woman in the Northeast Kingdom after overhearing her making plans to leave him.”
Act 1 supports funding of education in “how to recognize and prevent sexual abuse and sexual violence, including developmentally appropriate instruction about promoting healthy and respectful relationships, developing and maintaining effective communication with trusted adults, recognizing sexually offending behaviors, and gaining awareness of available school and community resources.”
It also provides access for school boards and headmasters to what is now called the Vermont Child Protection Registry, a database of all sex offenders in the state. Similar to the criminal background check done for all employees who work with children, the aged, and people with disabilities, the registry serves as a further measure to ensure a child's and elder's safety to make sure everyone who works with children in schools and licensed day care centers, is safe for children to be around.
Kibbe points out, however, that the registry “is only as good as far back as the records go, and as sex offenders register [with the state].”
All public and independent school contractors are required to request records from the registry before they are hired. A subscription service with a “state ID” will only give access to authorized requesters.
Further responsibility is laid upon Vermont school boards to “ensure that adults employed in the schools maintained by the district receive orientation, information, or instruction on the prevention, identification, and reporting of child sexual abuse.”
Act 1 states that school boards will provide information to parents, guardians and others who have an interest on the predatory behaviors of sex offenders, including “the signs and symptoms of sexual abuse, sexual violence, grooming processes, recognizing the dangers of child sexual abuse in and close to the home, and other predatory behaviors of sex offenders.”
“The Department of Education and the Agency of Human Services shall provide materials and technical support to any school board that requests assistance in implementing this section,” the law says.
The Technical Assistance Resource Guide (TARG) on the Department of Education website provides 122 pages of guidance.
“It's up to the schools [how they implement the mandate],” said Karen Crowley, DCF child victim treatment director. “We provide the information and resources and the correct developmentally appropriate curriculum. The schools need to integrate it into a comprehensive health curriculum.”
“We provide materials and suggest specific expectations,” Crowley said. “The law mandates [the prevention education] and the Department of Education oversees the curriculum.”
There is no oversight in place at this point, however, like an exit exam or test or statistical review, to hold schools accountable, Crowley admitted.
She expressed optimism, though.
“I'm very pleased with this entire initiative on information,” she said. “I worked very hard for two years to help develop this [on the state-appointed child abuse prevention task force].”