Treating child sexual abuse

Integrated Treatment of Child Sexual Abuse by Henry Giarretto, Ph.D., a comprehensive training manual for professionals who treat victims of incest (and other forms of child sexual abuse) and their families, explores the evolution, principles and methodology of the approach developed by the author to treat child sexual abuse. Started in 1971, the Child Sxual Abuse Treatment Program (CSATP) of Santa Clara County, Calif. has provided indepth professional and self-help treatment to more than 5,000 sexually abused children and their families. The program has served over 16,000 clients in all--more than any other single agency in its field--and has become one of the most widely emulated approaches to treating child sexual abuse.

The 315-page manual is designed to help workers in child protective services, mental health, law enforcement and associated agencies establish programs similar to the CSATP. The training project--originally funded by a California state grant and currently by a grant from the National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect--has resulted in the formation of over 115 CSATPs in the United States, Canada and Australia. Those receiving help from the program include children recently molested by family members or other individuals, the offending and nonoffending parents, adolescent offenders and adults who were molested as children.

The manual describes the professional, volunteer and self-help components that make a CSATP an effective community-based interventions of human service personnel, law enforcement officers and judicial system officials; second, the self-help groups known as Parents United, Daughters and Sons United and Adults Molested as Children United; and third, the cadre of trained volunteers.

In addition to an overview of the problem of incest and an examination of the pragmatic, humanistic philosophy underlying the treatment approach, the book contains personal accounts relating the emotional and practical support provided by self-help groups to those facing the personal, social and legal stresses that accompany incest and other types of child sexual abuse. A comprehensive outline of the 2-week training course is presented, complete with sample talks, exercises, forms and start-up guidelines.

Some key features and results of the Santa Clara County approach include the following:

* An intensive public education effort encourages victims and their parents to report abusive situations: The annual referral rate has increased from 30 cases in 1971 to over 800 cases in 1983.

* The recidivism rate among father-offenderws who have been treated has remained at less than one percent.

* Repeated interrogation of the child is avoided since about 90 percent of father-offenders confess their sexually abusive behavior to authorities.

* Over 90 percent of the children avoid foster or institutional placement and remain with their mothers and siblings (father-offenders are given no-contact orders and leave their home).

* After long-term therapy, father-offenders are returned to their homes only if they are deemed both physically and psychologically safe for their children.

* Most families are reconstituted and, therefore, the community is not saddled with the costs of foster home and institutional placements and welfare payments.

* Child victims treated by CSATP do not persist in the self-abusive behavior (for example, drug and alcohol abuse, marital difficulties, criminal activities) reported by adults who were molested as children who were molested as children who did not receive individual and family therapy.

Giarretto concludes: "From a humane viewpoint, it is immensely gratifying to note that children who are treated will not suffer lifelong devastation from the incestuous experience. From a social health viewpoint, it is also rewarding to realize that, when treated early, abused children are not likely to become society's future derelicts or criminals, as attested to by recent studies indicating that about 80 percent of our prisoners were physically or sexually abused as children."

Copies of Integrated Treatment of Child Sexual Abuse ($25.00 each plus $2.00 postage and handling) and information on applying for training in the program is available from Chuck Juliano, Training Coordinator, Institute for the Community as Extended Family, P.O. Box 952, San Jose, Calif. 95108.

COPYRIGHT 1985 U.S. Government Printing Office
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group