Warning Signs in Children and Adolescents of Possible Child Sexual Abuse

Any one sign doesn't mean that a child was sexually abused, but the presence of several suggests that you begin asking questions and consider seeking help. Keep in mind that some of these signs can emerge at other times of stress such as:

• During a divorce
• Death of a family member or pet
• Problems at school or with friends
• Other anxiety-inducing or traumatic events

Behavior you may see in a child or adolescent

• Has nightmares or other sleep problems without an explanation
• Seems distracted or distant at odd times
• Has a sudden change in eating habits
  • Refuses to eat
  • Loses or drastically increases appetite
  •  Has trouble swallowing.
• Sudden mood swings: rage, fear, insecurity or withdrawal
• Leaves “clues” that seem likely to provoke a discussion about sexual issues
• Writes, draws, plays or dreams of sexual or frightening images
• Develops new or unusual fear of certain people or places
• Refuses to talk about a secret shared with an adult or older child
• Talks about a new older friend
• Suddenly has money, toys or other gifts without reason
• Thinks of self or body as repulsive, dirty or bad
• Exhibits adult-like sexual behaviors, language and knowledge

Signs more typical of younger children

• An older child behaving like a younger child (such as bed-wetting or thumb sucking)
• Has new words for private body parts
• Resists removing clothes when appropriate times (bath, bed, toileting, diapering)
• Asks other children to behave sexually or play sexual games
• Mimics adult-like sexual behaviors with toys or stuffed animal
• Wetting and soiling accidents unrelated to toilet training
  

  Signs more typical in adolescents

• Self-injury (cutting, burning)
• Inadequate personal hygiene
• Drug and alcohol abuse
• Sexual promiscuity
• Running away from home
• Depression, anxiety
• Suicide attempts
• Fear of intimacy or closeness
• Compulsive eating or dieting

Physical warning signs

Physical signs of sexual abuse are rare.  If you see these signs, bring your child to a doctor.   Your doctor can help you understand what may be happening and test for sexually transmitted diseases.

• Pain, discoloration, bleeding or discharges in genitals, anus or mouth
• Persistent or recurring pain during urination and bowel movements
• Wetting and soiling accidents unrelated to toilet training

What You Can Do If You See Warning Signs

• Create a Safety Plan. Don’t wait for “proof” of child sexual abuse.
• Look for patterns of behavior that make children less safe. Keep track of behaviors that concern you. This Sample Journal Page can be a helpful tool.
• See our Let’s Talk Guidebook for tips on speaking up whenever you have a concern.
• If you have questions or would like resources or guidance for responding to a specific situation, visit our Online Help Center,http://GetHelp.StopItNow.org.

Remember, the most effective prevention takes place before there’s a child victim to heal or an offender to punish.

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Warning Signs in Children and Adolescents of Possible Child Sexual Abuse by Stop It Now! is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.  For permissions beyond the scope of this license go to www.StopItNow.org/terms_of_use.

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Age-Appropriate Sexual Behavior

Behaviors to Watch for When Adults Are With Children

Signs That an Adult May Be At-Risk to Harm a Child

Signs That a Child or Teen May Be At-Risk to Harm Another Child

What is Considered Child Sexual Abuse?

Update to Email Posted "Not Again"

UPDATE: Moreno Valley, CA

"Police found the guy, he admitted it.
He is 17 years old, with no arrests and he said "wanted just to talk to a pretty girl"....hmmm, He made a illegal U-turn in the street, put the car in park right next to her and she saw him place his hand on the door knob. All while she was saying no. (? talk).
Anyways, PD can't arrest him on that. His parents are notified too. I have an address and license plate, so I will be keeping an eye on him.

Safety training came in handy, as my daughter was able to give enough information to help the Police. Moreno Valley Police was awesome, not one flaw. Even to the extent in bringing in a sketch artist. (They may still ask the other girls and see if this is the same guy doing this back in Dec...hmmm). At least that will put to ease the community here (to a point).

We learned from this and I do plan on finding out why the schools policy is NOT to activate the 911 system. That needs to change. Give an Officer the chance to stop the car. But with no call, how can MVPD respond? And if it turns out to be a call like this.. okay. 
Any young girl/boy that is so frightened that they are in fear of their safety and feel they must run, that needs to be looked into. And what does it teach our young girls when adults do not call the Police. Is that setting in her mind that this is not a big deal? Thank you to Officer Gordon, my daughter was not treated like a no big deal.

Let's do what we can this coming school week. Walking and driving around the schools with our eyes open. Remember we are the eyes and ears, let MVPD do the rest. 951-247-8700-5 MVPD non-emergency line.

FACTS:
368 registered sex offenders in Moreno Valley, all accounted for (registered). Thank you MVPD!
1 in 5 girls & 1 in 10 boys before the age of 18 will become a victim of a sexual crime.

Safety tips for all ages:
Play the license plate game. Pass a car and ask what that plate was? Get your child use to looking at the plates.

If approached, remind your child/youth to yell "NO" and run in opposite direction or towards people and Tell or 911.

If approached on the street, you can go under a parked car and grab onto the pipes. This is very hard to remove a person from. Remember Yell! Yell! When safe Tell Tell!

Never, Never get in a car. Even if faced with a weapon. RUN, YELL! TELL!

Teach all ages to use the phone and how to dial 911. When not sure if it is important, call the non-emergency and let the Officers decide.

Have a secret password. Teach then, that if said around them, that they need to get to a phone and call 911, even if they do not understand where is the danger. If younger the password is used in-case another person is picking up your child, the child can ask for the password and know that the person is safe.

Buddy system.. never to old for this.

We all have to be more aware. Not just our children, But our Community Children.
Thank you and Stay Safe!"
JulieAnn Stewart-Cleaveland

NOT AGAIN!

Talk to your children NOW!

Moreno Valley and neighboring cities must face the reality of the most heinous crimes: a growing number of attempted snatching of adolescent girls on their way to or from school. 

Where as most victims have been able to flee, that hasn't been the case for some. The following is a word for word copy of an email sent out just yesterday by President of the East Area Neighborhood Watch:

"My 14 year old daughter was on her way to school (Mountain View Middle School), when a car (black El Camino) pulled over and the male tried to get her into the car. When he put his hand on the handle to get out of his vehicle, my daughter ran fast to school and told the Principal and Vice Principal.

Suspect is a male Hispanic, about 30 yrs old, weird eyes.. possibly one smaller than the other. This happened 6-3-2011 today at 8AM off of Morrison and Dracea.

I contacted Moreno Valley Police, Officer Gordon (3737) made a report (File# MV11 1540075). He brought in an forensic-artist to make a computerized sketch of the male. The sketch will be available next week, and Officer Gordon is going to ask the other girls if this is the same guy. MVPD handled this very professionally and very prompt. Thank You MVPD!

The school did not call the Police nor inform me (her mother). My daughter informed me through her cell phone at school. The Principal has informed me that activating the 911 system is NOT their policy. Only if the male had opened the door or touched her. I can not say how stomach-churning I feel, that no one called me or the Police. The policy according to Principle Fay, is that they call the SRO and the SRO writes an indecent report and that it lands on ___ desk. I have not spoken to ___ yet. But I will have more to say about this.

Back in December 2010, three girls had the same problem with a male trying to get them into his car. But the car was beige. Male Hispanic, about 30 years old, shaved head, once again on Dracea.. between Nason and Morrison. Norma Lopez was killed walking home from school at Dracea and Nason (one street away).

Lets get an active group to walk/drive around the schools at 7:30AM and 2:30PM. Only one more week of school. Please email me back to join in as we keep a look out for this guy or guys. Remember we are just the eyes and ears, the Police do the rest. 951-247-8700-5 Police non-emergency line, report all suspects.

PS, My daughter has only walked to school maybe four times this whole school year."

Thank you and Stay Safe!
JulieAnn Stewart-Cleaveland

Thank you Julie all of us that know you or your daughter are relieved. This writer is aware of similar attempts that have not made mainstream news on the N.W. side of Moreno Valley.

NO! He was only trying to express his "Constitutional Right to Freedom of Speech."

A Police Department DUI check point near where this horrible accident happened MIGHT have saved this girl's young promising life. The budding life and dreams of an innocent crushed by a few minutes of selfish, self-center behavior (drunk at twice the legal limit) in getting behind the wheel and stoked by a life time of apathy towards the suffering of others (Type II Sociopath.) Victoria Baca and her philanthropic organ, the"United Dem.s of MPA" as in "Dems dat get United to Support Dems dat pay Dems." must be happy? Austin Farley  faces a probable life sentence and Ashton Sweet was killed before she was old enough to drive however, Farley wasn't deprived of his 'right to express his freedom of speech.' This of course is the now infamous statement by Victoria Baca about her behavior, when arrested for physically interfering with a Riverside County Sheriff carrying out his duty at a check point and endangering the safety of the officer, the driver and everyone else in the area.  


Thanks again Vickie, you make  those tricky, obscure and even literal applications of constitutional law bow in the presence of your scathing repartee' regardless. Not to mention your singular tenacity with light poles - inspiring!. Of course it is the light from your light pole that guides us through the darkness of "the man's" petty rules into the promised land! The Promise: every drunk driver is revered like a conquering hero and every developer/Israeli Ex-patriate is graciously liberal with the cash he slips into the hand of the truly loyal  and NO illegal immigrant or drunk has to ever again live in fear of the surprise DUI check point. 

Viva La Raza!

Driver charged with DUI, murder in death 

of Irvine teen Ashton Sweet

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

Austin Farley, 26, was charged with one felony count each of murder and driving under the influence in the crash that killed 14-year-old Ashton Sweet. (KABC Photo)

TAGS:

dui, car crash, orange county news

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  By Elex Michaelson and Jovana Lara

SANTA ANA, Calif. (KABC) -- An Orange County man has been charged with DUI and murder for a collision that resulted in the death of Irvine teenager Ashton Sweet.

Police say 26-year-old Austin Farley's blood-alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit when he crashed into the car Ashton Sweet was riding in Sunday morning.

Farley appeared in court to be arraigned Wednesday afternoon. He pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and DUI charges. A pre-trial hearing was scheduled for June 24 at the Harbor Justice Center in Newport Beach. If convicted, Farley faces a maximum sentence of 20 years to life in state prison.

According to Orange County court records, Farley has a long criminal record.

• In 2009 Farley pleaded guilty to driving under the influence, battery on a peace officer, driving on a suspended license, and vandalism over $400.

• In 2008 he pleaded guilty to battery and damaging a monitoring device.

• In 2005 he pleaded guilty for refusing to take a chemical test for drugs or alcohol.

Farley now sits in jail and is held on $1 million bail. Irvine police say his vehicle struck a Mercedes-Benz carrying five passengers, including Sweet.

Sweet sustained an irreversible brain injury from the crash. She was being kept on life support so her organs could be donated. She was declared deceased Tuesday afternoon.

On Tuesday, nearly all of Sweet's classmates at Northwood High School wore white to celebrate her life. The memorial at the crash site is also growing.

"I think it's really hard for everyone," said junior Ashley Yonamine. "I hope that her family is doing all right and her friends remember all the joy that she brought and not all the sadness that comes with her death."

"Really nice kid," said Northwood High Principal Leslie Roach. "Very sweet, well liked. I think she'll certainly be missed."

Another passenger in the crash, 15-year-old Krista Merassa, remains in critical condition. Irvine police say her condition is improving and her injuries are not life-threatening.

School Counseling Podcast: OK! I got bored.

School Counseling Podcast: OK! I got bored.

Global Capitalism Is Destroying the Middle Class

Friday, May 6, 2011

James P. Hoffa

General President, International Brotherhood of Teamsters

Some of the most trusted institutions in the world are finally awakening to the dangers of unrestrained global capitalism.

Unions, of course, have for decades warned about the emerging global order. The reason for integrating regional economies into global networks has always been to shift power away from workers. The imbalance, we warned, was dangerous to all of our futures.

It gives me no satisfaction to say we were right. The world's economy is now dominated by multinationals roaming the globe to sniff out tax havens and cheap labor; out-of-control banks extorting governments for bailouts again and again; and politicians catering only to greed. All the while, America's middle class grew poorer, and smaller. Workers lost their jobs, their savings and their houses. Now their Social Security and Medicare are attacked.

The new organization of the world economy, dreamed up by the bankers and the multinationals, has failed. Don't take my word for it: This is what the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the Council on Foreign Relations are reporting.

The Council on Foreign Relations, for example, just published a paper that explicitly rejects the fantasy that everyone is better off when the free market prevails. The paper, written by economist Michael Spence, says that America will soon face a jobs crisis. He makes the striking argument (for the CFR) that so-called free-market solutions won't work. "That seems clearly incorrect and is supported by neither theory nor experience," he writes.

"Assuming that the markets will fix these problems by themselves is not a good idea... In truth, all countries, including successful emerging economies, have addressed issues of inclusiveness, distribution, and equity as part of the core of their growth and development strategies," he concludes.

You might think Spence was influenced by a union representative on the Council's board, but there are none. Its board consists of retired generals, bank presidents, Cabinet officers, prominent academics, and even one of the world's biggest union-busters, FedEx chairman Fred Smith.

Like the Council on Foreign Relations, the World Bank has long sided with powerful special interests in developed nations, often to the detriment of the lower and middle classes. So it was surprising to hear the World Bank call for justice and jobs earlier this month.

The Bank issued a report saying unemployment "was overwhelmingly the most important factor cited for recruitment into gangs and rebel movements." World Bank President Robert Zoellick said, "If we are to break the cycles of violence and lessen the stresses that drive them, countries must develop more legitimate, accountable and capable national institutions that provide for citizen security, justice and jobs."

This was a stunning statement coming from Zoellick, a former managing director at Goldman Sachs and President George W. Bush's trade representative. As a member of America's political and financial leadership, you would expect Zoellick to be blind to the need for justice and jobs, both as a moral duty and as a matter of self-interest.

The World Bank's sister institution, the International Monetary Fund, has typically taken a hard line against working people. For decades the IMF made emergency loans to troubled governments only after forcing them to cut spending on social programs. The IMF has even demanded worker's rights be weakened as a condition of granting a loan.

And so the IMF was perhaps the last institution you'd expect to argue that workers need more bargaining power. Yet the IMF came out with a paper last year that said exactly that.

The paper, titled "Inequality, Leverage and Crisis" presented evidence that extreme inequality between workers and the rich was a reason for the current Great Recession.

The paper said there will be "disastrous consequences" for the world economy if workers do not regain their bargaining power. It suggests radical changes to the tax system and debt relief for workers.

I am heartened that these respected institutions are sounding the alarm over the policies that are destroying the working classes around the world. Perhaps our combined voices will make some difference.

Make no mistake, however; the message cannot be denied, no matter who delivers it: Our economy rewards wealth, not work. It has impoverished the middle class and taken a savage toll on the growing ranks of the poor.

We need our leaders to hear this message clearly from all of us and to seek out a new economic course for our country. I've been waiting a long time for political leaders to show they understand this. I hope that I -- along with the IMF, the World Bank and the Council on Foreign Relations -- will not be waiting for much longer

.

NH Senate rejects changes to anti-bullying law

By KATHY McCORMACK
Associated Press


CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- New Hampshire's Senate voted unanimously on Wednesday to reject changes to the state's anti-bullying law that received strong support from the House, such as limiting school responsibility in dealing with off-campus incidents.

Senators said the current law is only months old and that schools have just put policies into place to handle bullying. Senators agreed the law needs further study before any changes are made.

Many states have been moving in this direction of extending school involvement to off-campus bullying, but some New Hampshire lawmakers wanted to restrict the boundaries to school grounds. The House passed a bill in March that would remove the off-campus provision and make other changes. The Senate's rejection leaves the measure's future in doubt.

Sen. Molly Kelly, a Senate Education Committee member, described the strong testimony at a recent hearing from students who were bullied and from educators and parents who support the current law. "They were close to begging us to keep the law the way it is," she said.

New Hampshire amended its 10-year-old anti-bullying law last year for the electronic age, now that tools like Facebook and Twitter also present golden opportunities for belittling and bullying. The change also allowed districts to step in "if the conduct interferes with a pupil's educational opportunities or substantially disrupts the orderly operations of the school or school-sponsored activity or event."

Some legislators believe the revised law gives schools too much authority over children. They say once a child leaves school grounds, it's the parent's responsibility to combat bullying.

"Bullying's bad; it's always existed, and nothing we do is going to stop it," said Republican House member Ralph Boehm, the bill's main sponsor and a former Litchfield school board member who said he was bullied as a child in the 1960s. "But the thing is, people do have freedom of speech and the freedom of speech can be mean," he said, so it's unconstitutional for school districts to punish children for what they say or do outside of school.

Sen. James Forsythe, a Republican, said Wednesday there were some provisions in the bill that did strengthen parental rights. However, he noted, no parents testified in favor of them during the hearings.

Nancy Willard, a Eugene, Ore., resident who runs the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, providing help with youth risk online issues, noted that courts have given schools the reach to combat off-campus bullying.

"School officials clearly have the authority to respond to any situation - regardless of the geographic origin - if that is causing a substantial disruption at school or making it impossible for another student to receive an education," she said.

All but five states have laws addressing bullying and 29 of them have provisions addressing cyberbullying. Last year, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick signed into a law a bill cracking down on bullying, passed after the suicides of two students believed to be victims of intense harassment, 15-year-old Phoebe Prince of South Hadley and 11-year-old Carl Walker-Hoover of Springfield.

When cyberbullying issues started emerging several years ago, Willard said, school administrators were afraid of the additional liability.

"It appears they are shifting because they know that they have to respond to these off-campus incidents because they sure as heck are going to have an impact at school," she said.

Educators and administrators - many of whom worked to revise New Hampshire's law last year after four teenagers were accused of coercing a special-needs student into getting a tattoo against his will - strongly support keeping the additional authority to fight bullying off school grounds.

Malcolm Smith, a family education and policy specialist at the University of New Hampshire who was part of a team working on the law last year, said research showed a direct link between "what happens at the burger joint, what happens at the skating rink and what happens in the school."

When parents or schools try to deal with bullying issues on their own, he said, they usually don't get resolved.

"It takes a community working together to solve this meanness that we're seeing," he said. "When you look at the data, our kids are becoming meaner than they've ever been before."

When schools want to fight off-campus bullying, it's not their intent to infringe of free speech or expression, said Robert Trestan, a civil rights counsel for the Anti-Defamation League in the East.

But, for example, if a student tweets from a home computer something that threatens the safety or learning ability of another student, he said, schools need to be on top of that.

"Social media is their social scene," he said of schoolchildren.

Rep. Donna Schlachman, a Democrat from Exeter, introduced last year's bill to update the law because of concerns she was hearing from parents and educators about bullying. She characterized the recent House vote approving the changes as "an overgeneralization about parents' rights."

"There's a sense where `We don't want the state telling us as parents how to raise our kids, how to educate our kids, or what our disciplinary rights are,'" she said. "I think it's a misreading of the law that occurred that made people feel schools were overreaching into the rights and privacy of kids and parents."

Boehm's bill would require school district employees or board members who know about an instance of off-campus bullying to tell the school principal, who would then have to bring it up with the parents of both bully and victim within 48 hours.

That provision has some school officials worried that the law revision would actually ratchet up the responsibility of schools.

"Every school board member under the existing law would as a citizen still have the opportunity to report bullying if they observed it," said Dean Eggert, a lawyer who has represented school districts throughout the state. "I'm not sure if the idea of reducing liability for school districts is consistent with imposing a duty on school board members to report bullying. The two seem to be moving in different directions."