You Are Not Alone in This

Trust in expertise is eroding everywhere. For the people doing this work, the strongest answer has always been each other.

The work is hard enough on its own terms. Then add the environment you are doing it in.

Trust in professional expertise is eroding. The 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer found institutional trust falling into what researchers call the "distrust zone" across multiple sectors. Science is politicized. Evidence is contested. Practitioners in fields that touch public controversy find their clinical judgments dismissed before they are heard.

ATSA members know this firsthand. You work with people the public fears. You apply a research base the public largely does not know exists. And you do it inside systems that were often built on assumptions the evidence has since overturned. That is an exhausting professional position, and it is one most colleagues outside this field will never fully understand.

Which is exactly why the colleagues inside it matter so much.

ATSA's board recently discussed Restoring Trust in Expertise, a whitepaper on trust and professional membership published by Association Transformation. One argument in it landed with particular force. In a time of epistemic pollution, the widespread contamination of public discourse with misinformation and low-quality knowledge, professional communities are not just a benefit. They are a bulwark.

In a time of epistemic pollution, a professional community is not just a benefit. It is a bulwark.

That is what this association is in the most practical sense: a community of people who have read the same research, wrestled with the same clinical dilemmas, and chosen to keep doing this work because it matters.

What that looks like in practice

It looks like a colleague who can help you think through a difficult risk assessment, because they have done hundreds of them. It looks like a conference session where someone names a problem you thought was yours alone. It looks like knowing that when you cite an ATSA practice guideline in a treatment report, or reference a position statement in a court proceeding, you are drawing on work your peers built and vetted together.

The field's evidence base did not arrive fully formed. It was produced by ATSA members, debated at ATSA conferences, published in Sexual Abuse, and refined over decades of collective practice. The whitepaper makes a point our field should take personally: peer-reviewed publication is one of the most powerful trust-building tools a profession has. A journal is not just a repository of knowledge. It is an instrument of accountability. When the science gets attacked, that community and that record are what make it possible to defend.

The ask is simple

Stay connected. Engage with the research when it comes through. Show up at the conference. Answer when a colleague asks a question in a workgroup. Mentor someone earlier in their career who is learning, right now, what it costs to do this work with integrity.

The erosion of trust in expertise is real, and it is not going away quickly. What holds against it is not any single practitioner's credentials or confidence. It is a community that keeps producing rigorous work, supporting one another, and refusing to lower the standard.

That is what ATSA membership is for.

References

Edelman. (2024). 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer. Edelman. https://www.edelman.com/trust/trust-barometer

Pratt, E., & Chamberlain, A. (2025, July). Restoring trust in expertise: The seminal role of membership organizations in an age of skepticism [Whitepaper]. Association Transformation.

Reflections on 33 Consecutive Years of ATSA Conferences

Our annual conference is ultimately about the people who make this community what it is. Each year, we welcome first-time attendees alongside members who have been part of ATSA for decades. To our knowledge, no one has been part of that journey longer than Jill Levenson, who has attended 33 consecutive ATSA Annual Conferences. We asked Jill to reflect on what has kept her coming back year after year. Her reflections capture not only how our field has evolved, but also the relationships, shared learning, and sense of community that continue to make gathering together so meaningful.

— Amber Schroeder, Executive Director, ATSA

by Jill Levenson, Ph.D., LCSW

In 1993, a flyer arrived at our agency announcing an ATSA conference and inviting people to become members. We didn't know much about the organization or the field at the time, but we joined anyway and attended our first conference in 1994 in San Francisco. This was before online databases and instant downloads. We spent hours in university libraries searching for journal articles, making photocopies, and trying to learn everything we could about sexual offense-specific treatment.

We were reading the work of pioneers like Richard Laws, William L. Marshall, and Gene Abel. Then suddenly, there they were, standing in an elevator with us. We were completely starstruck. And the Parc 55 Hotel was the most glamorous hotel we'd ever seen! We nudged each other in disbelief. "That's the guy who wrote that article we just read!"

Faces you look forward to seeing again.

What struck us even more than their scholarship was how genuinely nice and approachable everyone was. They patiently answered questions, shared ideas, and welcomed newcomers. That spirit of openness has remained one of the defining characteristics of ATSA.

Acquaintances across the globe have become lifelong friends.

Friendships built one conference at a time.

Thirty-three consecutive conferences later, ATSA continues to be the highlight of my professional year. I come for the ever-evolving science, the thoughtful conversations, the innovative ideas, and the spirited debates that challenge us to think differently. I come to reflect and connect with colleagues who understand the complexity of this work and who continually inspire me to grow.

The conversations between sessions matter as much as the sessions.

But I also come for the friendships. Over the years, acquaintances across the globe have become lifelong friends. There is something deeply comforting about being surrounded by people who share a commitment to compassion, evidence, and preventing harm. We belong to a unique community that isn't always understood by others, but that is united by a common purpose. And of course, I also come for the good food, the fun, the chance to visit new cities, and the silly moments of camaraderie in a serious field.

Good food, good company, and the camaraderie that carries us.

Every conference is an opportunity to learn from one another, mentor the next generation, process shared experiences, and continue shifting the paradigm toward approaches that are more effective, more humane, and more grounded in science. Collectively, we advocate for public safety, prevention, healing, accountability, recovery, restoration, evidence-based practice, trauma-informed care, social justice, and human rights for all.

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Over thirty-three consecutive conferences, ATSA has been more to me than an annual meeting. It has been my professional home, a place where I've learned, taught, questioned, laughed, led, and perhaps most importantly, found my people.

— Jill

Jill Levenson, Ph.D., LCSW
A longtime ATSA member, reflecting on 33 consecutive years of conferences.