Families can have conversations with children to help prevent child abuse and/or to recognize signs of abuse.  It’s important for children to have healthy and appropriate adult-child relationships in the community and at school, including online.  Families can speak up and report to appropriate agencies when they sense something is not right, such as school staff transporting students in personal vehicles without appropriate authorization, holding students alone at lunch or after class for non-school-related reasons, texting or calling students for non-school-related reasons, engaging in non-academic social media contact, buying food or gifts for non-school related reasons, demonstrating physical/verbal interactions that appear too friendly with students or appear to be singling students out, or staff being rumored to have inappropriate relationships with students.  Trust your instincts when you see something that doesn’t seem right.  There are staff and agencies available to help.

Committee for Children

Family-friendly videos on how to look for signs of abuse and how to talk about the topic as a family.