Review of Policies and Practices to Prevent Technology-Facilitated Child Sexual Abuse Within Youth-Serving Organizations in the United States

McCain, Jessica L.; Herbst, Jeffrey H.; Merrill-Francis, Molly; Willis, Leigh A.; Miedema, Stephanie Spaid; Shortt, Joann Wu

doi:10.1080/10538712.2024.2381457

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Review of Policies and Practices to Prevent Technology-Facilitated Child Sexual Abuse Within Youth-Serving Organizations in the United States

7 2024
By McCain, Jessica L. ; Herbst, Jeffrey H. ; Merrill-Francis, Molly ; ...
Source: J Child Sex Abus. 33(5):545-564

Public Access Version Available on: July 19, 2025, 12:00 AM

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English

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Details:

Alternative Title:

J Child Sex Abus
Personal Author:

McCain, Jessica L. ; Herbst, Jeffrey H. ; Merrill-Francis, Molly ; Willis, Leigh A. ; Miedema, Stephanie Spaid ; ... More +

McCain, Jessica L. ; Herbst, Jeffrey H. ; Merrill-Francis, Molly ; Willis, Leigh A. ; Miedema, Stephanie Spaid ; Shortt, Joann Wu Less -
Description:

Technology-facilitated child sexual abuse (TF-CSA), or child sexual abuse that occurs online or through electronic communication, is a preventable public health problem that can be addressed within youth-serving organizations (YSOs). This study is a review of a purposive sample of organizational policies and practices designed to prevent TF-CSA collected from 13 national and local YSOs in the United States. Documents were coded to identify practices to prevent TF-CSA related to YSO activities or YSO staff, volunteers, or participants. Qualitative analysis indicated that YSOs included seven common practices to prevent TF-CSA in their documents. These practices included transparent electronic communication between youth and YSO staff; codes of conduct and online behavior agreements related to youth; monitoring the YSO's online presence; parental controls for youth online activity; safety behaviors for online activity for staff, parents, and youth; parent and youth trainings for youth online engagement and prevention of TF-CSA; and practices to address staff policy violations. Most prevention practices documented by YSOs identified in this study are consistent with emerging literature on TF-CSA prevention. Key gaps include protections for youth from groups inequitably burdened by TF-CSA and evaluation of the implementation and effectiveness of practices in preventing TF-CSA across settings and populations.
Subjects:

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Adolescent Child Child Abuse, Sexual Female Humans Internet Organizational Policy United States
Keywords:

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Child Sexual Abuse Electronic Communication Online Behaviors Prevention Technology-facilitated Youth-serving Organizations
Source:

J Child Sex Abus. 33(5):545-564
Pubmed ID:

39028545
Pubmed Central ID:

PMC11560703
Document Type:

Journal Article
Funding:

CC999999/ImCDC/Intramural CDC HHSUnited States/
Volume:

33
Issue:

5
Collection(s):

CDC Public Access
Main Document Checksum:

[+]

urn:sha-512:35d04ed3fc885610de1b8667d130935880273c7f507bd5291abb3e13c9d868e4b32cba866cac15d35e04fda7db8eb96c9d4d3dd92932ba347bae2cc1ea485eb5
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