JustTell has been invited to participate in Penn State Child Sexual Abuse Conference

Sept. 26, 2012 - PRLog -- PRESS RELEASE

Contact:
Yvonne M. McCormack
Talk of the Town PR
717-659-1411
yvonne@talkofthetownpr.com
www.talkofthetownpr.com

JustTell receives a special invitation to participate in the
Penn State University Conference on Child Sexual Abuse

New York, NY Sept. 26, 2012 – JustTell (www.justtell.org), a New York City based non-profit with a nationwide initiative, is pleased to announce that they will be participating in the Penn State Child Sexual Abuse Conference in October 2012. The goals of the conference are to raise awareness, educate, energize, and empower all of us to move forward to better protect children.

JustTell was asked to join an elite group of organizations from all over the country that offer solutions for child sexual abuse. Just Tell was hand selected because of their one-of-a-kind mission, which encourages children to break the silence and speak out about sexual abuse.

Our founder, Vivian Farmery, says, “Our focus is to continually increase the percentage of youth who disclose sexual abuse when it occurs. This essential element has been missing in society and needs to be our number one priority if we are to improve upon how this issue has been handled in the past. Information and social support are crucial factors in a child’s ability and willingness to disclose sexual abuse. Prompt disclosure is second only to prevention in the goal of protecting children from abusers.”
Through consultation and collaboration with social workers, pediatricians, police, psychologists and other skilled professionals in the field of child abuse detection, JustTell has developed a research-based approach to addressing sexual abuse. Over 80% of youth who are sexually abused are abused by an adult whom they know and have trusted. The goal of JustTell is to reach out to anyone between the ages 8 and 17 years old who has been sexually abused in order to convey, in age-appropriate language that they are not alone, they are not to blame for the abuse and should feel no guilt or shame, and then to assist then in choosing a trustworthy adult in their life and telling that adult about the sexual abuse. By empowering young adults, we can effectively counter the barriers to disclosure that abusers try to instill.

Because teens listen to the advice of their peers more than that of adults, they are asked to participate in every aspect. Teens designed everything from JustTell’s graphics to what we call “Street Teams”. These teen-centric teams are made up of volunteers who go out into their communities and hand out JustTell’s information to their peers. Through social media and the outreach groups, teens serve as the primary deliverers of the JustTell’s message. In addition, each summer a team from JustTell travels with the Vans Warped Tour, reaching tens of thousands of teens who attend the nationwide shows each summer.
Simply teaching youth about sexual abuse is not enough. We need to give children a safe haven where they can read about situations like theirs to understand that they are not alone, and not to blame, and why they need to tell someone. Since sexual abuse among children is largely a silent and witness-free crime, detection can often be difficult, therefore disclosure is critically important for investigative and treatment purposes. JustTell honestly and openly addresses all of the factors that make it difficult for a young person to tell.
The long-term desired outcome of JustTell is to increase the disclosure rate of sexual abuse and to change the way this generation of youth perceive, and respond to, childhood sexual abuse. All initiatives are designed to generate awareness, and to provide compassionate, age-appropriate guidance to prepare children who are being sexually abused with the means to begin a conversation with a trustworthy adult.  
About our Founder:
Vivian Farmery, MSW is a social worker with over 20 years experience working with the issue of childhood sexual abuse. For over 25 years, Vivian has immersed herself in direct social service, education, program planning, and policy change to assist survivors of childhood sexual abuse. Vivian designed and implemented the first Mental Health Program for a Federal Head Start center and trained numerous Head Start Centers in abuse detection and reporting policies. She taught for eight years as a professor of social work at the New York University, Adelphi and Fordham Graduate Schools of Social Work and has recently returned to Fordham where she is teaching new social workers to work with adolescents.  Recognized for her advocacy on behalf of children, she was appointed by two successive Manhattan Borough Presidents to serve on the New York City Panel for Educational Policy.


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