California State University, Monterey Bay Digital Commons @ CSUMB Capstone Projects and Master's Theses Capstone Projects and Master's Theses 12-2020 Supporting Survivors Coming Forward Samanta Herrera California State University, Monterey Bay Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/caps_thes_all Part of the Counseling Commons, Other Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons, Social Justice Commons, and the Social Work Commons Recommended Citation Herrera, Samanta, "Supporting Survivors Coming Forward" (2020). Capstone Projects and Master's Theses. 944. https://digitalcommons.csumb.edu/caps_thes_all/944 This Capstone Project (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by the Capstone Projects and Master's Theses at Digital Commons @ CSUMB. It has been accepted for inclusion in Capstone Projects and Master's Theses by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ CSUMB. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 1 Supporting Survivors Coming Forward Samanta Herrera Survivors Healing Center Robyn McKeen Collaborative Health & Human Services Department of Health Human Services and Public Policy California State University Monterey Bay December 16, 2020 Supporting Survivors Coming Forward 2 Abstract As an intern at Survivors Healing Center an issue that was identified was child sexual abuse cases are too common. The contributing factors that have a correlation to the community problem that was mentioned is denial, emotional maltreatment, and family characteristics. The consequence of the contributing factors led to depression, suicidal and a potential reacurrence of sexual abuse. The purpose of the project was to educate participants on how to support survivors who are coming forward. By educating them the expected outcome was to have some participants leaving with knowledge towards the issue. As a result of addressing the contributing factors during the panel discussion the end result were positive outcomes. There was an increase in confidence from the participants in regards to approaching the issue. A recommendation given was to provide a Spanish speaking panel in the future to educate more participants. Keywords: child sexual abuse, denial, depression, language barriers, stigma, survivors, Supporting Survivors Coming Forward 3 Agency & Communities Served Survivors Healing Center (SHC) is an agency under the Family Service Agency of the Central Coast (FSACC) located in Santa Cruz. According to SHC its mission is, “To empower those victimized by sexual abuse through a healing process and to prevent sexual abuse of children through community outreach” (2019, para 1). The agency provides group therapy for survivors of child sexual abuse for male and females, partners of survivors, and mothers survivors. The main population that the agency serves is survivors of child sexual abuse. Although SHC also advocates to end child sexual abuse and to bring awareness to the issue through various events and collaborations with other agencies. Problem Description The main problem that the community faces is child sexual abuse (CSA). According to the National Sexual Violence Research Center, one in four girls and one in six boys experience child sexual abuse (2018). This proves that children are still getting raped at a high rate. There is a lot of stigma in regards to thinking that strangers are the ones that can cause harm to children. Although that is not entirely true, 90% of child sexual abuse is perpetrated by someone the child or childs family knows (Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 2015). The misconception of stranger danger still lingers in parents' thoughts and when raising their children that is the one of the things that they teach their children to fear. It is difficult to come to terms that someone close to the family might harm their children but the reality is, that it is occurring. The percentages are high and children are still getting raped. Unfortunately getting raped causes trauma that later in the children's lives that they might have to overcome. That is why agencies like SHC exist to help adults deal with their trauma of being sexually abused as a child. Supporting Survivors Coming Forward 4 Contributing Factors Child sexual abuse is an issue that continues to grow even after raising awareness and being in a current state where it is openly talked about. One of the reasons that this issue continues to occur is due to denial. This denial towards rape that is strongly considered it helps condone sexual agression (Gresson et al., 2018). Since it's helping condone sexual aggression then individuals are basically siding with the rapist and turning their backs on the victim. Denial is known to be the first thought or feeling and individual has after a victim seeks help. It is understandable that the human mind wants to disbelieve something that it truly hard to understand like child sexual abuse. Not being able to wrap your mind around on believing that someone was capable of raping a child can be difficult but it is possible. As long as the individual is able to step away from denial and be willing to side with the victim. It has been recognized that emotional maltreatment has a correlation with child sexual abuse (Estévez et al., 2016). The emotional maltreatment is known to develop uncertain feelings towards an individual or the world. Feeling uncertain or insecure as a child makes them an easy target. They can easily be brainwashed and predators can manipulate love to harm. Emotional maltreatment derives from a lack of parenting skills that is known as emotional neglect. Emotional neglect is the failure as a parent or guardian to provide sufficient affection and emotional support to their child (Estévez et al., 2016). Love and affection are some things that a child seeks and desires. Like mentioned before, without these things a child can become more vulnerable thus rapists used this as their advantage. In addition to emotional maltreatment, family characteristics contribute to the risk of children being sexually abused. Some of the family characteristics are correlated with the age a mother gives birth. For instance, for teenagers ages 17 and under that become pregnant their Supporting Survivors Coming Forward 5 children are at greater risk of getting raped between the ages 3 and 5 (Matta Oshima et al., 2014). The chances of the children getting raped decreases as the mother gives birth at a later age. This characteristic can be due to the fact that when a child's mother is a minor the chances of her having a stable home or life are slimmed. Which creates a pattern and the child’s life also becomes unstable and it puts the child at greater risk of neglect, maltreatment and being sexually assaulted. Another contributing to family characteristics is poverty. A child that comes from a poor family is three to seven times likely to be sexually assaulted (Matta Oshima et al., 2014). Being raised in a low-income household most likely means that the parents or guardians are hardly with their children. Without the supervision of parents, the children are exposed to more danger. That danger in this case being more likely to get raped due to the lack of support. Consequences One of the most consequences of being raped as a child is that it is more likely to reoccur a second or third time. The timeframe between the first and second report for sexual abuse is about 639 days (Palusci & Ilardi, 2020). This means that less than two years after a child has reported being raped, the incident happens again. It is difficult to accept that an individual has been raped, after seeking help, but still being prone to recurrence again can be devastating. The recurrence is also more likely to happen if the rapist was a male (Matta Oshima et al., 2014). As mentioned before, dealing with getting raped once should be more than enough to try everything possible for it to not occur a second time. Another consequence from this trauma is depression. Child sexual abuse survivors are more prone to experience depression at an early age (Li et al., 2020). Depression is one of the most common effects after experiencing high levels of trauma. Being sexually abused as a young age can definitely leave permanent scars and without seeking help it can deteriorate. The Supporting Survivors Coming Forward 6 timeframe of experiencing depression for children that have been raped compared to those that have not is 6.5 years earlier (Li et al., 2020). It proves that traumatic events have a high correlation with mental issues at an early age. Depression is not common in children who have not experienced high levels of trauma. The reason being is that their mind isn't trying to block any bad memory, which children who have this trauma are constantly trying to avoid. That is why depression is more common in these cases. Children that have been sexually abused are also more likely to attempt suicide. Although children that experienced that abuse through penetration are 12 times more likely to attempt suicide (Matta Oshima et al., 2014). This can be because the child was exposed to more pain compared to a child that was only touched. Whatever the case might be, sexual abuse victims more correlated to suicide attempts than any other form of abuse (Power, Gobeil, Beaudette, Ritchie, Brown, & Smith, 2016). As mentioned before, being sexually abused causes an immense trauma. It develops issues of trust, acceptance, forgiveness and it takes away an individual's right to their own body. These factors contributed to the unwillingness of wanting to continue to live. Barriers to Service Delivery As mentioned before there is a stigma related to child sexual abuse. A stigma that takes a hold on an individual's life and stops them from seeking help.