We need to START enacting effective practices to prevent and report sexual abuse within institutions

 

By Kieran McCartan, Ph.D., David Prescott, LICSW, and Kasia Uzieblo, Ph.D.

Sexual abuse within institutions, whether big or small, is not a new phenomenon. It’s something that we have discussed on this blog before. Therefore, we are not going to re-tread old ground. In recent weeks both the Baptist Church and Hockey Canada have been hit with allegations and been levelled with criticism that they have not responded appropriately. This is agonizing for the community at large, but especially for professionals who want to help. These are the same professionals who ask for a seat at the table to inform policy, too often get rejected, and eventually see the same thing happen time and time again. In this blog post, we ask the question of why do things not change? Why does policy change, but not necessarily public attitudes, beliefs, or practice? As a society and as professionals, we need to ask ourselves, what does it take to change mindsets?

Our beliefs about the world are often ingrained in who we are, they are not hard wired but the older we get the more they are influenced and reinforced by social norms, culture, education, and personality. This does not mean that we cannot change our beliefs or behaviours, but it means that they are harder to change. If this is true of us as individuals, then it’s true if us at a community and societal level. Social and political change is hard regardless of the topic. 

The reality of social change is that it:

- needs to be personal to each individual and they must believe that they can make a difference.

- must focus on an issue that communities can come together on and feel inclusive in tackling; it needs to represent the ideas and beliefs of everyone and make people feel that a shared outcome is possible.

- needs to involve a groundswell across society allowing different communities to come together, contribute, and enact changes. Individuals need to feel that they can carry out society’s mandate for change in their own lives and communities with the understanding that everyone else is working towards the same goal.

Although the desire and drive to prevent, report, and respond to sexual abuse meets the above criteria, there are significant stumbling blocks along the way that have not been addressed, including:

- The perception of responsibility – This often looks like, “It’s an individual behavior that impacts others, but not me! It’s not up to me to police other behaviours and social change is too complicated for me to think about.”

- The reality of time – Some may be able to change attitudes and beliefs overnight, but this is not the case for everyone, especially if they do not perceive the topic as a problem. Real social change needs time and space to evolve and does not result from brief attempts to influence others. 

- The monitoring and enforcement of change – There are broader questions of who is monitoring what change, and how are they doing it? Is there discussion about what progress is happening, and how acceptable that progress is? This is particularly relevant when everyone and no-one owns the issue with the belief being someone else will monitor it. 

- The shared understanding of good practices – Making progress in any social change involves defining what good practices are and their relationship to the evidence base, especially when the evidence base is new, emerging, or non-existent. What do you implement? Who leads? Is there a single voice?

- The noise of “expertise” – Because sexual abuse is a broad area, there are many different voices. Some are positive and some negative. Who are these experts? How do you determine good from bad? How, do they align to your politics, culture, context, and location? How do we nurture an evolving consensus?

- The lived reality of sexual abuse – Given the scale and nature of sexual abuse, everyone reading this post knows several people who have experience sexual abuse (or have perpetrated sexual abuse) with an array of different outcomes. This means that we will hear stories of hope and stories of frustration and desperation. These stories can influence us for better or worse, leading to unrealistic hope or pessimism. As our friend and erstwhile co-blogger, Alissa Ackerman has observed, we are never more than a stone’s throw from a survivor of sexual abuse.

Therefore, what can we professionals do? 

- Perhaps the most important thing is to keep talking about it. We can meet, communicate, and discuss sexual abuse in shared forums.

- We can continue to identify the best practices we want to implement (as well as bad practices we want to eliminate) and expand our growing evidence base.

- We can maintain a realistic sense of what is achievable and set realistic times for their completion.

- In implementing new practices, we can appoint someone or some organisation to be in charge – to drive the bus, as it were – and make them hold us all to agreed actions and follow their judgements.

- We can agree that  we are changing social norms as well as individual actions and agree to continue to work on it in the short and the long term.

- We must continue to demand our place at the policy table and to intervene in public debates to bring and keep the nuanced, evidence- and practice-based vision in the conversation. 

50 years ago, there was almost no public discourse about sexual abuse and offending. People started talking and kept talking about the issues, resulting in a groundswell of support for change at a societal level. With that change came new challenges, involving not only our responses to offending, but the need to accept that we continue to have double standards. Ultimately, we need to help the public understand that this is about all of us.

ATSA is changing its name.

By Kieran McCartan, Ph.D., David Prescott, LICSW, & Kasia Uzieblo, Ph.D.

ATSA’s legacy and recognition are important to the overall health of our organization and its place in the world. So, too, is accurately describing our activities! ATSA has always been an ever-evolving organization within a constantly changing field. This means that it’s important every so often to stop and take stock of where we are at and what we are doing. This post focuses on the recent organizational name change from “Association for the Treatment of Sexual abusers” to the “Association for the Treatment and prevention of Sexual Abuse,” the logic behind it ,and what it means moving forward. It is the result of nearly two decades of discussion by members and various boards of directors.

ATSA was originally established to provide support and insight to professionals who worked in the field of providing treatment for people convicted of a sexual offense. It began at a time when research was scant and few resources existed. ATSA was created to champion, as well as nurture, evidence-based practice in the field and develop good practice. This is still one of the central tenets of the organization, as evidenced by submissions to the journal, the ATSA Forum newsletter, and the annual conference; but it has evolved beyond these activities with an increased focus on policy, prevention, international collaboration and diversifying research, trans-disciplinary and multi-agency teamwork. To a certain degree, ATSA has been a victim of its own success. It evolved to a position where it leads the field in North America and is a growing player internationally. ATSA is seen as one of the main go-to organizations for people working in the field, and the most important conference for academics to showcase their work. All this success begs the question of why we need to change the name. This was a question that the ATSA board struggled with, but ultimately thought that it was important so for several reasons, including:

- A lot of the work that ATSA now does is oriented towards the prevention of sexual abuse, whether that is preventing first time sexual abuse or preventing people from committing sexual abuse again. We have had a committee focusing on prevention for approximately 20 years.

- The relevance of terminology, as the field is moving away from the blanket use if terms like “sexual offender” and “sexual abuser.” Many have argued that a less stigmatising and pejorative terminology can be used. This is significant,  as the international landscape is stating to change, especially in westernized and anglophone countries, towards person- first language and away from a labelling approach. A couple of years ago NOTA, the sister branch of ATSA in the UK and Ireland, changed its name from the National Organisation for the Treatment of Abusers to National Organisation for the Treatment of Abuse for that very reason.

- A recognition that ATSA addresses abuse as a broad concept, and does not focus on just one aspect of it. Where ATSA once focused just on the assessment and treatment of individuals who abuse, we now also focus on the impact of abuse on individuals and/or the community’s reaction to it. This broader use of “abuse” in our name means that the full remit of ATSA and its partnerships are incorporated. This expanded focus is also reflected in the increasing attention paid to these three target groups at the annual conference, in scientific research and in the weekly blogs. 

- There is an additional dimension to the name change as well: there can be certain funding or partnership opportunities that would otherwise be closed to ATSA because we might be seen, incorrectly and from a distance, simply as an abuser charity/organization. While the work of ATSA is still mainly oriented in the direction of those who abuse, it is to reduce and individuals’ risk of abusing and therefore it’s about community protection, safeguarding, and victim support as well as helping people to establish lifestyles that are incompatible with harming others. Making it clear from the outset what ATSA stands for in the name is an easy way to avoid these complications.

- There is also another, significant but understated reason. ATSA frequently advocates trauma-informed, person-centered and strengths-based approaches that recognize how people who commit sexual abuse may also be the victims of other forms of abuse or trauma. Since individuals who abuse have often been victimized themselves, it’s therefore  important to recognize their dual status in our name as one would in practice.

Having received positive feedback from the membership and making the decision to move forward with the name change and put it to a vote, the members of ATSA’s board had to decide upon what the change would be. Would it be a complete overhaul or an adaption? The board felt that an adaption would be best, as many felt strongly that ATSA was a strong brand with clear messages. Therefore, the role of the name change would be to strengthen and clarify this, not to undermine it. The board decided that the word prevention should be added to the name that that abuser should be replaced with abuse. However, it was decided that the acronym should remain as ATSA and not be changed to ATPSA, as that would be too confusing and, ultimately, unnecessary. Additionally, it was felt that the twitter handle “make society safe” was also fit for purpose.

Yes, the official name of ATSA is changing but the core principles, although evolving and diversifying, are the same at heart – to provide a clear and evidenced approach for working with people impacted by sexual abuse, including those who abuse.