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What if online Child sexual exploitation is facilitated by a family member?
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As in our example of the eight-year-old girl who is being exploited by her mother
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well, in many cases, the child may feel a sense of confusion, a real confusion.
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This mother is supposed to be a safety figure who protects the child.
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And at the same time, the mother is asking the child to do something that makes her feel very uncomfortable.
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She may also feel a sense of betrayal.
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She may feel guilt. As we know, children tend to take on a lot of guilt and self-blame and start blaming themselves.
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So she may feel guilty and she may feel angry.
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So there are a lot of difficult feelings she may be dealing with that sort of over and above
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the online component when there's a family member involved.
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Well, how do we talk to an exploited child?or to their caregiver?
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Are there particular things that we can do to increase our ability to build trust with the child
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and learn what's going on in their lives so we can help them
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There are a few things to know about talking to children who've been sexually abused and exploited.
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One is that the initial denial of abuse or exploitation is not uncommon.
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We don't have exact statistics for how often this does occur.
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It's almost impossible to determine that.
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But we know it does occur and people may deny abuse or exploitation
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for any number of reasons related to shame, humiliation,fear.
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For example, they may initially deny and later disclose their abuse
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or they may never disclose it.
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But just because a child says nothing happened
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does not necessarily mean there was no abuse or exploitation.
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In addition, the recantation of an allegation of abuse or exploitation also occurs.
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So that is the attorney makes an allegation of disclosure, of exploitation, and then recants and says,
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no, no, no, I was lying. It didn't happen.
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In many cases, the child may go on later
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to make the same allegation again when they feel safer.
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We tend to see recantation in cases in which the child is either younger
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or they're very vulnerable to external pressure.
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If they have a caregiver who doesn't believe them when they say they were abused
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if they're receiving a lot of pressure from their family or others close to them to recant their statement
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if they're experiencing a lot of trauma associated with an investigation
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they may just want it to go away.
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So they recant the allegation, hoping things will just go back to the way they were.
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Again, in many cases, children who have recanted will later go on to disclose again when they feel safe.
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A third point that's really important to make is that while false allegations of sexual abuse
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sexual assault, sexual exploitation can and do occur,
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we should not assume that they are the norm in the vast majority of cases of child sexual abuse.
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The allegation from the child is true.
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There are instances where children are making false allegations
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but they're rare, and we should not assume that is the norm
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in most cases where there are false allegations.
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It turns out that the person responsible for that false allegation is the caregiver
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or another adult who may have misinterpreted what a child said.
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So they think the child is disclosing abuse when the child is intending to do that.
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So, again, we know that it can occur
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if the child can give a false allegation,but we should not assume that's the norm.
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Finally, another good thing to keep in mind is that the initial statement a child gives to you
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or to me or to another professional may be incomplete.
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Why is this so? many times children want to test the waters
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They want to know what you're going to do when they tell you a little bit about what happened.
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It's very stressful for them.
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So they may tell you a little bit about it and see what you do.
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If you're supportive, if you're calm, if you believe them, they feel they can trust you.
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They may go on to tell you more either now or the next time they interview you
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but often they will not disclose everything in the beginning
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because they're trying to decide whether they can trust you.
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So don't be surprised if your first interview yields some information and the second interview yields more.
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Also, keep in mind that stress can impact memory
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and some children cope with extreme stress by pushing down that memory.
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So it's hard for them to remember the details of a very stressful event
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and it may take time for those details to come out.
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It may be that the child tells you one thing, and a week later, when I'm speaking to them they tell me something else.
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Does that mean they lie to you? No.
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It means that they're accessing different parts of their memory of the event at different times.
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So keeping those things in mind, how should we talk to a traumatized child?
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Well, there's something called a trauma-informed approach which you may have heard of.
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And it's actually appeared as a way of speaking with a child
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or an adult or anyone who's experienced significant trauma like online exploitation.
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And there are several things that are key to a trauma-informed approach.
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One is recognizing the impact the trauma has had on the child victim
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and responding appropriately so that the child can feel accepted and build trust.
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Another thing that's important is to minimize the trauma that may occur while we are trying to help.
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Often our interventions as we try to serve or investigate or assess can be traumatizing to the child.
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We want to minimize that trauma.
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Other important aspects of trauma-informed care are the importance
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of building psychological and physical safety
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the importance of being transparent, and communicating information to the child so they know what's going on.
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And they don't have to worry about the lack of certainty about what's going to happen next.
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Respect is absolutely imperative.
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While a child is being abused or exploited, they're not being respected by their exploiter.
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They may be systematically degraded and humiliated and disrespected.
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So we need to go out of our way to build that respect and show our respect.
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And finally, trauma-informed care is not simply about
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the trauma a child has experienced about the child being a victim.
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We have to remember that the child is a survivor.
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They have tremendous strength and resilience that have allowed them to live through these experiences.
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And it's our job as a trauma-informed professional
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to empower the child, to recognize their own strengths
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become engaged with the conversation with you, make decisions
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ask questions, feel like they have some agency in this interaction with you.
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That's all part of empowering the child.
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I have mentioned that trauma impacts the life of the child.
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Think about it, the child has been sexually exploited online
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or in person has sustained a great deal of trauma that has changed the way they view themselves
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the way they view the world.
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it's changed the way they view adults
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the way they view you the way they interpret what you said and your facial expressions.
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It will change the things they say in the way they behave.
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Let's take an example.
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If a child has been exploited online, they probably have grown to feel that the world is a hostile place.
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that others, especially adults, should not be trusted.
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The people want to use them not protect them
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They don't trust us because we're an unknown stranger. We're adults in a very weary on us.
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They may interpret What we have to say as being hostile or judgmental
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because they're seeing us through a trauma lens.
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Their behaviors reflect what they believe, what they've come to, to accept out of the world.
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If a child is being sexually exploited, they may see
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the world as being a demanding place that's harsh
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and the only way these things take with people is through sexualized behavior
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because that's what they've been told is the most important thing about themselves.
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So we as professionals need to be able to look at behaviors
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listen to what the child has said, and stand back and say
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that's the child looking through their trauma leins
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that behavior is related to trauma.
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And if we do that, it's much easier for us to be non judgmental
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calm, open, empathic
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A trauma-informed approach is very victim-centered.
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And that means the child's best interest
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has to take higher priority
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It's a higher priority than your interest than the other professionals involved.
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We always have to think about what is best for the child and whenever we can honor what the child wants.
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I have mentioned, safety is such an issue not only physical safety
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which is extremely important but also building a sense of psychological safety for the child.
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How do you do that?
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We can help a person feel safe by building an environment
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to feel safe, making sure that it's got warmth, and that it's warm enough
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That people aren't coming in and out, introduce yourself describe your role, and describe what's happened.
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build rapport, tend to their basic needs
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are really hungry? are you thirsty? are you warm enough?
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these are all ways to make your child feel psychologically safe
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but it's not just at the beginning.
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that You want to worry about psychological safety
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but always through your visit with the child.
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Whatever you do, whether you're assessing, you are interviewing
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doing a physical exam, you just think about all the interactions
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and all the environments the child is in
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and try to think if is there any point during our interaction.
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where the child may start to feel out of control, uncertain about what's going to happen.
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Vulnerable threatened coerced
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Because all those feelings are associated with trafficking,
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if it's our environment
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if the way we are interacting with the child triggers those feelings
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a feeling out of control and coerced
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they're going to become very anxious because that takes them back
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to the traumatic situation, while as it turns out
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Using a trauma-informed approach addresses an of those triggers
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and will take care of them for you if you are transparent if you provide explanations
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and obtain consent from a child
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if you are giving the child informations
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if you're giving them control so they can decide what they want to do or don't want to do.
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They know what's going to happen.
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If you reveal confidentiality early on, they can decide what they want to tell you
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and they are not going to feel betrayed later on
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If you're nonjudgmental and open, they feel respected.
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They're not going to feel threatened or coerced.
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So a trauma-informed approach is really a good way of preventing trauma triggers.
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So just to conclude, children and adolescents are at risk for multiple types of online child sexual exploitation
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and such exploitation is associated with major adverse physical and mental health consequences
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both associated with contact sexual violence as well as the online component of exploitation.
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A trauma-informed approach is recommended when working with exploited children.
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This is the best way to build that trust and build a connection with the child
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that will allow them to feel they can tell you what's going on in their lives
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and you can do what you can to help them.
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I hope you've gotten something out of this and have profited from this presentation.
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Thank you so very much.
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If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to me or email your organization's website.
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We're willing and very interested in helping you however we can.
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Thank you.
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