On October 4, 2017, Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau gave a talk at the World Congress for Child Dignity in the Digital World, a conference that brought together leaders and researchers from around the world to discuss the dangers of children becoming victims of online sexual abuse and bullying. The conference took place in Vatican City and was convened by the Child Protection Centre at the Pontifical Gregorian University. (Featured at left: Dr. Letourneau and Fr. Thomas Rosica.)

Dr. Letourneau’s talk was one of the few that introduced the idea of prevention and the importance of viewing child sexual abuse as a public health issue. She also discussed how most of our efforts in the U.S. go toward detection and punishment.

Minimum sentencing, sex offender registration and living restrictions are all policies that have been implemented after harm has already been done. None of these costly policies prevent child sexual abuse.

Another important concept that Dr. Letourneau covered was the idea that as long as we view people who sexually abuse children as monsters, we are going to overlook the people in our children’s lives that we would never suspect: coaches, priests, teachers and family friends are more likely to sexually abuse our children than strangers. We wrongly believe that people that hurt children are on a trajectory toward more offending and greater harm, when in fact, once caught, people who commit sex offences have very low risk of committing other sex offenses.

2016 Child Sexual Abuse: A Public Health Perspective

Speaker Schedule 

Event Location: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 615 North Wolfe Street, Baltimore, MD, 21205, Sheldon Hall (W1214) 

Time: The symposium will begin promptly at 9 a.m. and end at 4 p.m. Please have your ID card ready at the registration desk in order to get your visitor badge.  

Please note: The registration table will close at 2 p.m.

Register now for our fourth annual symposium on Thursday, April 21, 2016 at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. 

This year's symposium will highlight the unique experiences of families dealing with child sexual abuse. International and national experts in the field of child sexual abuse prevention will present their latest research findings as they pertain to the family impact of child sexual abuse. Our panel discussion will include the perspectives of both parents of child victims and youth with problem sexual behaviors with a special focus on understanding how family members are affected by child sexual abuse.

• Special Guest Speaker: Jennifer Bleyer, senior editor and writer for Psychology Today, will speak about her recent work on child sexual abuse prevention and moderate our panel. Other featured speakers will highlight the science of child sexual abuse prevention.
• Lunch and Learn: Please join us for a luncheon and talk by Dr. Ryan Shields who will present the latest findings in our Help Wanted study and take questions from the audience. For more information, click here.
• Child Maltreatment Poster Session: Please join us for our free poster session and dessert featuring research by graduate and undergraduate students. The session will begin at 12:45 pm in Feinstone Hall (E2030) and all are welcome. Winners will be announced at the end of the day. For more information and to submit a poster, click here.

Questions? Please direct all questions to Amanda Ruzicka at aruzicka@jhu.edu.

Registration is now open for our third annual symposium, Child Sexual Abuse: A Public Health Perspective. The event will take place Friday, April 17 from 9 am to 4 pm at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Special Guest Speaker

Journalist Luke Malone, who produced an award-winning radio story on young pedophiles for This American Life and a companion piece for Matter Magazine will be our special guest speaker. Malone has also written for outlets including The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, Salon, Vocativ and The Sydney Morning Herald. 

Who Should Attend This Event?

The goal of the symposium is to bring together a group of professionals in the field of child sexual abuse prevention to present findings from their research, discuss ways to improve our response to child sexual abuse and develop stronger prevention initiatives. Our audience can expect to walk away with a better understanding of the policies and science that affect our current understanding of child sexual abuse prevention as well as hear about the real life experiences of those living with an attraction to young children.  Anyone with an interest in preventing child sexual abuse, knowing how policies impact children and families and hearing the latest research to develop best-practice approaches to working with young adults attracted to children is encouraged to attend. Our audience is broad and includes clinicians, therapists, professors, researchers, social workers, educators, healthcare professionals, lawyers, policy makers, representatives from nonprofit organizations as well as students, the media and members of the general public.  

Get more details including where to park and lunch options here. This event is free and open to the public, however, registration is required.