The Children's Advocacy Project provides internal, authorized facilitators to conduct trainings through Stewards of Children, Darkness to Light in order to help adults recognize, respond and react to child sexual abuse.

• This is a training course available upon request to organizations and public groups.
• The cost of the training is $10 per person plus travel expenses if it is out of town.

Darkness to Light’s® Stewards of Children is a revolutionary sexual abuse prevention training program that educates adults to prevent, recognize, and react responsibly to child sexual abuse. 

The program believes and teaches that child safety is an adult's job. Stewards of Children is designed for organizations that serve children and youth.

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What are the distinctive features of Stewards of Children?

• A comprehensive program that incorporates all of the fundamental mechanics necessary in creating organizational policies and procedures that keep children safe. Ideal for training staff and volunteers on child sexual abuse prevention.
• Includes the “7 Steps to Protecting our Children,” Darkness to Light’s core, evidence-based educational tool for sexual abuse prevention.
• A 2.5-hour training program that integrates the simple principles of choice, consciousness, and personal power to promote an understanding of the nature and impact of child sexual abuse, and that uses those principles to provide a context for empowered action.  The curriculum is direct about holding each adult accountable, and generous in providing powerful, specific support for personal change.
• Video component of curriculum integrates personal stories of sexual abuse survivors, sharing their experiences of trauma and healing with the perspectives of professionals working with various issues of sexual abuse.
• The program is motivational and compelling.  It calls participants into personal responsibility for the safety of children, while at the same time appreciates their fears and concerns.

Stewards of Children Works

In pre-post evaluations of trainings conducted in 9 different organizations that included faith centers, schools, community-based youth programs, and sports/recreational programs, participants demonstrated a 38% improvement in knowledge about sexual abuse and in attitudes about adult responsibility in the resolution of child sexual abuse after exposure to the Stewards of Children program. Two months after training, participants showed a 29% increase in behaviors focused on the protection of children from sexual abuse (e.g., they directed more questions about child protection policy to staff of youth-serving organizations; they talked more with children about healthy sexuality and protection from sexual abuse).

On a scale of 1 to 5 participant ratings on the quality and effectiveness of the program was higher than 4 on all questions, indicating that participants find the curriculum compelling.