Georgia’s Stewards of Children

The Georgia Center for Children (GCC) is significantly addressing the epidemic of child sexual abuse by adding prevention to its traditional response services.  By utilizing the Stewards of Children program, GCC is leading a statewide initiative to train 1,000,000 Georgia adults to prevent, recognize, and react responsibly to child sexual abuse by the year 2020.  The Stewards of Children program is a revolutionary sexual abuse prevention training program developed by a Charleston, SC based nonprofit, Darkness to Light (D2L) and is focused on shifting the responsibility of prevention from children to adults.

Target Population for Georgia's Stewards of Children Initiative

The primary target audience for the Stewards of Children campaign is adults in Georgia. Why should prevention initiatives target adults? The most common form of child sexual abuse prevention programming focuses on teaching children how to identify and react to sexual advances. Though teaching children about their bodies is beneficial, there is no proof that these programs have long-term effectiveness in reducing the rate of child sexual abuse. Further, many professionals question whether it is realistic to place the responsibility for stopping sexual abuse on small children, especially when almost 90% of abusers are family members or acquaintances of the victim.

The Stewards of Children Initiative takes a different approach to prevention. The Georgia Center for Children and Darkness to Light believe that adults are responsible for the safety of children. Many adults are unable to protect children from sexual abuse because they do not know enough about the problem and they do not know steps they can take to reduce the risk.

After taking the Stewards training adults will:  

• Understand the facts of child sexual abuse – incidence rates and effects on children, their families, and society;

• Understand how child sexual abuse happens;

• Understand that adults are responsible for the protection of children;

• Understand the importance of screening staff/volunteers who work with children and adolescents;

• Understand the importance of minimizing one-adult/one-child situations and developing well-conceived policies in youth-serving organizations that support this;

• Be able to recognize the signs of sexual abuse;

• Have resources to react responsibly to incidents of child sexual abuse; and

• Understand the proactive role that communities need to take to protect children and educate others about child sexual abuse.

Stewards of Children training 

Become a Stewards of Children Facilitator

Trainings for individuals interested in becoming facilitators are also available and provide an opportunity for organizations to have a representative receive training in the delivery and support of the Stewards program.  Upon completion of the facilitator training, participants will be certified to train others using the Stewards of Children program and will have increased knowledge on the creation of organizational policies and procedures.

Facilitator Training dates for 2007

All trainings are from 8:30am-5:00pm and locations to be announced.  Training dates are subject to change, please call to confirm.  Registration is required.

• August 1^st
• August 23^rd
• September 12^th
• October 30^th
• December 13^th

For more information, to schedule a Stewards training for your group/organization, or to register for a facilitator workshop contact GCC’s State Prevention Coordinator, Tiffany Sawyer, at (404) 378-6100 or tiffanys@georgiacenterforchildren.org.

Georgia’s Stewards of Children  Outcomes