Child Maltreatment Solutions Network at Penn State
project

Smart Parents – Safe and Healthy Kids (SPSHK)

Smart Parents – Safe and Healthy Kids (SPSHK)

Parents have a responsibility to create a happy, healthy, and safe environments for their children. Many parent-education programs exist giving parents the skills to do this, but no parent-education program exists for the prevention of CSA specifically. Capitalizing on skills taught in existing parent-education programs, we seek to efficiently and economically help parents prevent their child from experiencing sexual victimization by teaching them about children’s healthy sexual development, facilitating parent-child communication regarding sex and sexual abuse, and enacting measures to ensure their children’s safety (i.e., monitoring and vetting of babysitters). SPSHK was designed as a single additional session added toward the end of an evidence-based parent education program. SPSHK aims to improve parents’ knowledge about sexual development (i.e., demonstration of age-appropriate and inappropriate behaviors), facilitate parent-child communication about sex and CSA, and empower parents to take charge of their children’s safety (i.e., vetting potential babysitters, monitoring exposure to media).

Research Team

Profile photo for Kate Guastaferro, Ph.D., MPH
Kate Guastaferro, Ph.D., MPH

Assistant Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences, NYU School of Global Public Health

Associate Director of the Center for the Advancement and Dissemination of Intervention Optimization