Storytelling as a tool for prevention of child sexual abuse

• Grant number: 13/02668-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: July 01, 2013
• End date: March 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Psychological Treatment and Prevention
• Principal Investigator: Lúcia Cavalcanti de Albuquerque Williams
• Grantee: Sheila Maria Prado Soma
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

One of the current contexts in which preventive work has been showing good outcomes it is the area of violence against children and adolescents, specifically sexual abuse. One of the consequences of sexual abuse is that child victims often have difficulty discriminating the difference between what is an aggressive act and a cooperative act and cannot act properly when facing these situations. Thus, preventive actions in this area aim to eliminate or reduce factors that may encourage aggressive attitudes, eliminating or reducing the social, cultural and environmental factors that promote aggressive acts. An alternative proposed in programs preventing child sexual abuse would be to use children's books in these programs, which refers to the goal of this study: to evaluate the effectiveness of storytelling as a means to acquire self-protection skills against sexual abuse in children of the 2nd year of elementary school. More specifically, the objective is to verify if the reading of the children's story book "O Segredo da Tartanina" can promote the acquisition of skills for self-protection against sexual abuse in children compared to other children's prevention book, not specific for sexual violence or child abuse prevention. The study will be performed in a public school in the city of Ribeirão Preto. The research instrument to be used is the WIST (What If Situation Test). The research will be developed through experimental groups design. The research strategy will consist of a workshop of storytelling with 3 groups of children in the school and interview with each of them individually to complete the evaluation instrument. As a result, it is expected that children who participate in interventions may have developed the skills to: a) recognize the inappropriate approach of an adult, b) resist the assaults and seductions of the adult offender and c) report the fact. (AU)