Evaluation of the effectiveness of the stay safe primary prevention programme for child sexual abuse

This child abuse prevention study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Stay Safe Programme in training unscreened 7 and 10 year old children in personal safety skills. Subsidiary aims were to evaluate the program's impact on children's self-esteem and parents' and teachers' knowledge and attitudes of relevance to child abuse and protection.

Changes in safety knowledge and skills and self-esteem of 339 children who participated in the Stay Safe Programme were compared with those of 388 waiting list controls. Children in the training group were also followed up at 3 months. In addition, the knowledge and attitudes of parents and teachers of children who completed the program were evaluated before and after the program and 5 month follow-up data were collected from teachers only.

Compared with waiting-list controls, trained children showed significant improvements in safety knowledge and skills and these gains were maintained at follow-up. The greatest gains were made by 7 year olds. Children who participated in the program also showed significant improvements in self-esteem which were maintained at 3 months follow-up but only the 7 year olds in the training group made significantly larger gains in self-esteem than their control group counterparts. Children with a higher socioeconomic status benefited more from the program than less privileged children. Both parents and teachers showed significant improvements in knowledge and attitudes concerning protection over the course of the program and for teachers, these gains were maintained at follow-up.

The findings suggest that the Stay Safe Programme was effective in training children in safety skills and so may usefully be used as a primary prevention intervention for child abuse.