CALIFORNIA
The Tidings
Child abuse prevention includes empowering children by teaching them body safety rules and steps they can take to ensure their own safety.
Sadly, according to the American Humane Association, the average age of a sexually abused child is 9.3 years.
The Good Touch/Bad Touch® body-safety program for pre-school and Kindergarten through six grade students is designed to prevent abuse before it ever occurs. It also empowers young people to stop abuse that might be occurring, and minimizes the damage of abuse which may have happened in the past by emphasizing to children that it is never their fault.
Good Touch/Bad Touch® meets many State Departments of Education health/safety education requirements and is used in 44 states. In Catholic schools and parish religious education programs in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, it is being presented through the Office of Safeguard the Children by carefully trained and certified teachers, counselors and volunteer facilitators. The Office of Safeguard the Children was established by Cardinal Roger Mahony to coordinate numerous sex-abuse prevention programs for adults and minors at parishes and schools.