Development of an evidence-based audit tool to assess school system provision for child sexual abuse prevention

Objectives: The past four decades have seen increasing public and professional awareness of child sexual abuse and, in many countries, the provision of school-based programs has been a core strategy in public health-oriented... [ view full abstract ]

Objectives: The past four decades have seen increasing public and professional awareness of child sexual abuse and, in many countries, the provision of school-based programs has been a core strategy in public health-oriented prevention efforts. At a system level, however, relatively little is known about what school provision exists, if any. This presentation introduces a new audit tool for assessing the scope and nature of school system-level provision of child sexual abuse prevention.

Methods: We developed an audit tool for primary (elementary) school systems based on a comprehensive international search of the academic and grey literature, relevant guideline databases, and child welfare agency websites. We adapted and integrated frameworks from related areas including primary prevention, health promotion, and safe schools, from which we distilled key criteria.

Results: Our audit tool has 10 key criteria each with a set of guiding questions relevant to the provision of school-based child sexual abuse prevention. The audit tool has since been trialled in two Australian research projects: the first involved 8 school systems; and the second involved 32 school-systems and incorporated an additional stakeholder feedback loop. The school-system audit can be undertaken independently as data are collected from material that is publicly available on school-system websites and/or libraries.

Conclusions: The audit tool can be used to assess and, in relevant circumstances, compare school system provision in the domains of policy and curriculum. Audit results may be used as a benchmarking exercise, to support strategic decision making, and as a catalyst for system reforms to focus and enhance and prevention efforts.