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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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of child sexual abuse 2024-07, Vol.33 (5), p.545-564
Main Authors: McCain, Jessica L., Herbst, Jeffrey H., Merrill-Francis, Molly, Willis, Leigh A., Miedema, Stephanie Spaid, Shortt, Joann Wu
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Avoidable
Child
Child Abuse
Child Abuse, Sexual - prevention & control
Child sexual abuse
Children
Codes of conduct
Communication
electronic communication
Health problems
Humans
Influence of Technology
Internet
online behaviors
Organizational effectiveness
Organizational Policy
Parenthood education
Parents & parenting
Pedophilia
Prevention
Public health
Qualitative research
Safety behaviour
Sexual abuse
Technology
technology-facilitated
United States
Violations
Volunteers
Youth
Youth organizations
youth-serving organizations
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Summary: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.
ISSN:1053-8712
1547-0679
1547-0679
DOI:10.1080/10538712.2024.2381457