[music] 00:08 Jackie Strohm: Welcome to PA Centered, a podcast designed to help listeners be a part of the solution to end sexual harassment, abuse, and assault. Each episode we will take on a topic or current event to help spark conversation and break down barriers to building communities free from sexual violence. [music] 00:32 JS: I'm Jackie Strohm, the Prevention and Resource Coordinator at the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape. I'll be your host today as we are joined by Susan Court from d'Vinci interactive and JPL. On today's episode, we are talking about Safe Secure Kids, which is one of my favorite projects. It's near and dear to my heart. And so, I am so excited to spend this time introducing you to Safe Secure Kids, hearing about how it got started and how you can get involved. So welcome, Susan. 01:00 Susan Court: Thanks Jackie, I appreciate the opportunity to talk with you. 01:04 JS: Yeah. So could you just tell us a little bit about yourself and how you're involved in the project? 01:11 SC: Sure, you mentioned that it's near and dear to your heart. Well, it is to all of ours as well. In fact, I think this is my most favorite thing that I get to work on. So, I'm very great grateful to be a part of the d'Vinci and JPL team and help make a difference with the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Rape on Safe Secure Kids. So, my role has really been to work with our teams at d'Vinci and JPL, as well as the teams PCAR, to try to figure out how to make these resources meaningful for adults and kids. And there's nothing really more important for any of us than to make sure kids are safe. I mean, we all want kids to be happy and healthy, so that they can grow up to be happy and healthy safe adults. So, the fact that we can have a role in this is just pretty powerful. 01:55 JS: Yeah, I totally agree. So, before we get too far into it, do you mind telling folks what Safe Secure Kids is? 02:04 SC: Sure. Safe Secure Kids is a free educational resource that we designed to help parents, teachers, and caregivers keep kids safe from sexual abuse. Now the website, if you check it out at safesecurekids.org, it features helpful resources, videos, interactive learning activities, and it's all designed to help adults have those important conversations with children about bodies, boundaries, and consent. And there are resources for caregivers and learning activities for kids to learn about feelings that are also in the works. So, it's really a great tool for caregivers, as well as kids to start to have those important conversations. And we're just hoping that people using these resources, the more people talk about it, that will be able to set and respect boundaries in order to help reduce the number of people who are harassed and abused, and ultimately creating a role where kids are happy, healthy and safe. 03:02 JS: Yeah, that's a fantastic goal and that's exactly why PCAR loves working with d'Vinci, because PCAR helps bring some of that content expertise and d'Vinci helps make it look beautiful and make it work well and be there on the website looking amazing. 03:23 SC: That's it's a pretty good partnership, I think. We knew at d'Vinci that we knew how to design and develop custom learning solutions, we do that and in both the corporate and government markets, but also in the K-12 market. And we spend an awful lot of time creating online learning games and other learning experiences for organizations like National Geographic Education and Discovery Education and PBS Learning Media and Sandy Hook Promise, so that we knew we knew how to help educate kids and adults. But we also knew that even though we had the capabilities and instructional design and creative design and in a multi-media and web development, that in order to really create educational programs for kids that would have an impact we needed a Subject Matter Expert. And that is you and your team at PCAR because you've got all the information and together, we're a pretty good team. 04:17 JS: Yeah, I think so too. I actually love telling the story of how we got started and got paired up together. So yeah, in case anyone is wondering, PCAR hosts some trainings for our staff at rape crisis centers, and we were doing one on a prevention program that's for elementary age students and middle school students, and even pre-K. And one of the people who were coming to get trained to who work at one of the centers, actually was related to someone who worked at d'Vinci, and together got us all connected and said, "Hey, I think you two would be perfect partners to develop some content." 'Cause we're all in need of this right now, with the way the world is going, parents are wondering how they can help have these conversations with their kids. And we heard from rape crisis center staff that it's really hard to get parents, even though they care so much, to attend after school events or weekend events. Because let's face it, we all don't have a lot of time and it can be hard to get a baby sitter or someone to watch your kids. 05:28 JS: And so, we wanted to create resources that were easy to use and something that adults could use from the comfort of their homes at their own time, at their own pace. And so like Susan was saying, all of the materials or something that adults who care for kids, which are all of us, can learn how to be trusted adults, how they can be the people who protect kids and make sure that they're safe because it is their responsibility. So I always love looking back at our history, which I can't believe we started this, at least two years ago, maybe three. 06:09 SC: And so much more to do, which is great. I think we all recognize that these instances of child sexual abuse are around us every day on the news, and many of us even know of a child who is sexually abused. But the good news, I think, is that there is heightened awareness, and of course there's mandatory training and reporting plus there are clearances that are mandated for adults who work with kids. But there's so much more that we can do to prevent these tragedies and their long-lasting impact, and that comes through education. And at d'Vinci and our parent company, JPL, we definitely wanna want to invest in projects that can make a difference in our communities. And like I said before, what can be more important than keeping our kids safe, and I'm just very thankful under the leadership of our d'Vinci CEO and JPL President Luke Kempski, our team has just been delighted to invest our time, our talents, and our resources, and in Safe Secure Kids and really enjoy this partnership with PCAR. Because, I think, together we're really making a difference. 07:10 JS: I agree. So maybe that's a perfect segue to our next question, which is; how can people get involved with Safe Secure Kids, how can they access it and what kind of materials are there for them to use? 07:24 SC: Couldn't be any easier. All you have to do is go to safesecurekids.org. And really, this is a free resource for caregivers, and when we say caregivers, that like you said, that's any adult who has any impact on a child's life. So certainly that's a parent, that's a teacher. It could be a relative, it could be somebody who works at a neighborhood community center, anyone who can have a positive impact on a child's life, and of course, children. And right now, the content that we have on this the site is really geared for kids in early elementary school. But as time moves on, we're gonna look to build out more content that's a relevant to that middle school and high school age. 08:02 SC: Because this is really a journey, if you think about it, parents and care givers spend an awful lot of time talking to their kids about math and science and writing and manners and things like that, and those are all wonderful and much needed. But this is a topic, bodies and boundaries and consent. Is that something you really talk about with your kids or make a concerted effort to do it? And the thinking is that if caregivers can start to have these conversations with kids at an early age, this becomes part of their tool belt. So as kids navigate life, which is challenging as we all know, if they're having these conversations with caregivers, and that trusted adult early in their life, then if and when they're ever faced with a challenging situation, and maybe it isn't even something as tragic and horrible as child sexual abuse, but maybe it's even just a difficult situation in a marriage or in a friendship or a work situation. 08:58 SC: But that they can come back to some of these fundamentals about how do I deal with my feelings in this situation or is it okay that I am taking this action with another person without asking their permission? And these are very basic things that I don't know that parents make a concerted effort to talk to about with their kids, or caregivers for that matter. But with these resources, it gives you the tools to start to have those conversations. So Safe Secure Kids is really meant to be a journey for both kids and caregivers. It's not like, here's a site, go send your kid to it to play an interactive learning activity, and they're gonna learn everything. It's your responsibility as a caregiver too to go to the site and start to read some of the resources that are out there. 09:43 SC: To look at some of the videos. We have a great video on what is consent. And it really asks that question of adults and caregivers, like are you willing to have these conversations with your children? And what that video does is it helps level set, because I think a lot of adults don't know if they're even equipped to have these conversations, they're difficult conversations to have. It's not like we're all wonderful at having these great communication skills, but Safe Secure Kids can help you start down that path to do it in the right order. And by having the resources there for parents to review, caregivers to review, and then complementary learning activities for kids to support what you've learned as an adult, you're well on your way to start really building some really great foundations for our kids. 10:33 JS: Absolutely. Yeah, like Susan said, Every single resource was designed to make it as easy as possible for you to have these conversations with your kids. And we know that all of these skills take time to practice and learn. And so, if you're a parent for the first time, or you're a friend of the family or an aunt or uncle or a coach, faith leader, and you say, "I wanna make sure that I can play my part in keeping kids safe," Safe Secure Kids is a perfect place to start because we've tried to compile all of the resources that you would need in one place. Which I think is really helpful, since we said a lot of us don't have a ton of time to devote to learning these things. And so we're really excited about a lot of the new materials that are gonna be coming out soon, about feelings and how to be a trusted adult. 11:28 JS: And we have so many other ideas which is really exciting to think about. The possibilities are endless because there's so many skills and things that we want to teach all of you and we wanna learn together. And I also wanted to just mention, I know, Susan said that the point is for adults to sit down with their children or the children in their lives and do these interactive activities. And what's so great about that, is that we know that some of these students and children are lucky enough to have rape crisis center staff coming into their schools and trying to teach them all of these skills and topics, and really trying to set them up to be successful children, and adults in life, with all of these new found skills. And even though we can spend time with these children in the schools, we know that parents are the ones who ultimately influence what happens, and whey get to set the tone and the values for their child's life. 12:31 JS: And so we wanna make sure that even though they might be getting some of this in school or in their community groups that they go to. We wanna make sure that you continue these conversations at home, because we know it takes time to really learn and practice them. And so all the interactive activities that we have for you to do with the children in your life, give opportunities for you to practice those skills. And what's great is that you can go back and do them any time. It's not like you can only do it once. There's lots of different scenarios and some of the ones we have coming up about feelings, people's feelings change from day to day. And so I think it would be really neat for you to try these material, materials out with your kiddos a couple of different times throughout the year, and make sure that we're building those sustained skills over time. 13:24 SC: Yeah, absolutely, I mean, this isn't a once and done thing. And as instances come up in your child's life, whether it's something that happened at school that day or something that happened at church or on the soccer field, you can come back to Safe Secure Kids for resources to help. Maybe your child's already done the interactive learning activities about feelings, but maybe three months from now something happens, and you think, "Wow, this is something I need to go back to because this is really gonna be important today." For them to understand that, you can recognize and understand your feelings and it's okay to have mixed emotions. And how do you navigate that? And these are great life-long lessons that every child should learn to be a healthy adult. 14:12 JS: Absolutely. And I just realized we haven't even talked about my favorite part about Safe Secure Kids. 14:17 SC: I know, I can't believe it. We've gone all this time. You haven't mentioned Heart. [chuckle] 14:21 JS: Do you wanna tell us about Heart? 14:24 SC: Jackie and I love heart. Heart is our trusty messenger, and it's the character that we have on the site for children to relate to, and you work with Heart too to learn about your feelings and about consent and respect. And he's just a very friendly, respected character, and I think kids really identify with Heart. So the learning activity that we have up right now is about consent. And with Heart you get to finish building the town statue. And along the way you collect these tools and materials, to help Heart finish the town of consents statute. And it's fun because it's great for kids 'cause it's a game, it's a learning activity, but they're also along the way, learning the importance of respect and empathy, and compassion. And throughout the activity, Heart asks for consent to make sure that Heart's boundaries are being respected and heart is respecting other boundaries. So that's really an important lesson for kids to learn and Heart is just a fun way to help bring those messages home. 15:28 JS: Yeah, Heart always makes me smile every time I get to see him. I feel like I go to the website a couple of times a week just to be like, "Oh, Heart's so cute." And the great thing about heart is that when we decided to go with Heart, we wanted to create a character that would really resonate with kids. And so, Heart is shaped like a heart, and we know that kids want to make sure that they're respecting other people's boundaries and that they're showing their feelings appropriately. And we felt like Heart would be the perfect blend of integrating some of the characters that children are used to interacting with on tv shows and in other activities that they participate in other video games. But Heart really represents our goal, which is to make sure that kids are happy, healthy and safe, and we feel like that all comes down to our hearts. 16:28 SC: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. I think when the kids get on there, they really enjoy the learning activities with Heart, and it just makes it a kind of a fun experience for them and kind of fun for adults too. 16:40 JS: Yeah, absolutely. Heart is for everybody. So what does the future of Safe Secure Kids look like, Susan? 16:49 SC: Well, we've got some great things coming up related to feelings, and again, activities for children, but also great resources for adults, so that kids are able to recognize and identify and communicate their feelings, because that's a real critical part of child sexual abuse prevention. So we're hoping that through the activities that kids are gonna be able to recognize and identify and communicate feelings, and how adults can learn how to be a trusted adult and communicate with kids about their feelings. And address some major life events that many kids do face. And just helping kids identify who a trusted adult is in their life. And it may be one trusted adult, for one kind of situation and another trusted adult for another kind of situation. But just to give kids advice on how to find that person or those people, so that when you're feeling down or when you're feeling joyful, you know who you can go to, to trust to share your life's ups and downs with. 17:51 JS: Absolutely. 17:52 SC: So that's a big part. And then I think as we continue to build out the curriculum, we certainly want to make sure we're addressing the needs of kids in middle school and kids in high school. Hopefully they've been through the early elementary school education that we're offering, and then we're setting them up for greater success in middle school and in high school. But again, this is a life-long journey, and certainly the activities will mature as the children mature and the topics we mature as well, but it's something that we're hoping that we can really reach children of all ages to help keep them be happier, and safer adults in the future. 18:34 JS: Yeah. And that's why we really wanted to focus these resources on elementary age children to start, because we know that students and teens are getting this information more readily. They have folks coming into their schools, to present about it, they might be learning about consent in health class, hopefully. And then when you get to college, you learn a lot of information about consent and being a bystander. But we know that as people get older, it's harder to change their attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. And so if we can start as early as possible with these little ones, we can really make sure that they understand how they impact other people and how they deserve to have their bodies and boundaries respected, that they need to respect other people's bodies and boundaries, that they know how to communicate, talk about their feelings. And know that they can get help from a trusted adult, because we know that having one caring adult in a child's life can make all the difference. 19:41 JS: And so I'm really excited about this next set of resources that we're going to be putting out, because we talk a lot about, "Oh, go talk to a trusted adult." But what does a trusted adult actually look like? And so, we really break that down for adults to learn what it looks like to model behaviors, how they can answer questions that kids have, how they can talk about feelings with them. And so, like Susan's been talking about this whole time. It's not just for kids and it's not just for adults, it's for everybody to be able to learn together, and I think that's what's so unique about it. 20:21 SC: And I think what also is interesting too Jackie, is it's not just about child sexual abuse prevention. While obviously that is our ultimate goal, all of these educational offerings, and the learning activities, they just make for happier healthy safer kids in general. So whether that's keeping them free from being bullied or at least educating them on what to do when that happens, or we're making them feel more loved and respected and affirmed. So that they go throughout school which can be so challenging. Elementary school is challenging, middle school is even more challenging and high school is extremely challenging for kids to navigate these days. And to have some of these fundamental tools in their tool belt, I think will help them just navigate life in general. 21:06 JS: Right. We're trying to help kids have better relationships with people, and not just romantic relationships, but friendships, with your parents, with your siblings, with your teammates and eventually right with your co-workers. And if you choose and are able to be a parent when you get older, you're gonna wanna have some of these skills to pass down to your own children and other children in your life. So it's really relevant for everybody and we would encourage all folks to check it out. 21:40 SC: And the curriculum Jackie, talk a little bit about that. The curriculum is not just what Jackie and her team and d'Vinci and JPL think is relevant. This is based on some foundational learning principles that you've seen in other instances that you're able to make work for Safe Secure Kids. 22:00 JS: Absolutely. All of the content is based on best practices for child sexual abuse prevention. And so, that boils down to a couple of different things. We wanna be trauma-informed in all of the content we create. We don't wanna do anything that will hurt or harm a child while we're talking about this. And so that's why you'll see, we don't actually talk about child sexual abuse with the children, but instead, like Susan said, we're giving them the skills that if that would happen, they would be able to talk to a trusted adult, and get help about it. It's also really rooted in adult responsibility. And so a lot of the traditional child sexual abuse prevention programs, they focus on telling children to talk to trusted adults, but they do it in a way where they put the responsibility on the child to be the one to say; If something happens to you, you have to tell someone. You should say no, run away and tell. And we know that child sexual abuse is more complicated than that. Adults take advantage of families actually and find ways to get close to children and make them trust them, and so it's really hard for kids to understand what's happening. 23:23 JS: They might also not understand that the abuse that they're experiencing is something that's not okay, because we know that sexual abuse can feel good to some kids. And so, it's really complicated and messy, and it's not as easy as saying, "If you do these three things, everything will be okay." And so we want to create skills for kids that, like Susan said, if something really happy is going on in their life, they can communicate that to a trusted adult. Or if sexual abuse is happening, they can communicate that to a trusted adult and get help. And so it's really rooted in all of those skills that just make you more likely to succeed in life and that's really rooted in some of that social-emotional learning. We're also focusing on not just trying to prevent children from being victimized, but we're trying to create skills for children to not cause harm to others. And there's this a statistic that's like, one third of child sexual abuse is committed by other children. And so we refer to those children as youth with problematic sexual behavior, and it is we can get help for them and help them understand that their behaviors are not okay early on. 24:52 JS: But so what's important about that is trying to make sure that these children have the skills necessary to realize when they're crossing boundaries when they're not respecting other people's feelings and boundaries. And what's important is just making sure that we're trying to do everything we can to set children up to be happy, healthy, and safe kids so that they can be those happy, healthy and safe adults that don't cause harm to other people. 25:25 SC: Absolutely. We see Safe Secure Kids as a big part of the solution, because education is so important and this is something that PCAR and d'Vinci and JPL are going to continue to invest in because we believe in it, we believe in trying to make a difference and we know these materials can play a really vital role in making kids just better, happier, safer, adults. 25:51 JS: Absolutely. Is there anything else you wanna tell us about Safe Secure Kids before we wrap up? 25:57 SC: Just that there's so much more to come and we're excited to involve people in the process, so we invite everybody to go to safesecurekids.org, take a look at the materials, do the learning activities with kids and give us your feedback. You can actually tell us what you think about the activities. Is there something else you'd like to see? We would definitely like to know that. You can sign up to receive a periodic email newsletters from safesecurekids.org. So you know when there's new activities and new resources posted. So we encourage you to do that. And we're also very thankful for the support that we've gotten, while d'Vinci and PCAR have invested time and talent and resources into making safesecurekids.org a success. We've also had the financial support of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania through the Department of Human Services, through the Hershey Company Penn State Health and high market, all of who share our commitment and our passion to keeping kids happy, healthy and safe. So we invite people too to join us and be a part of this and sponsor and we'd be happy to talk to any organization that would like to be a part of safesecurekids.org to help us make a difference. 27:12 JS: Awesome. Thank you so much, Susan, for joining us today on PA Centered. 27:17 SC: Thank you Jackie, it was a pleasure. 27:20 JS: It was so great to hear all about Safe Secure Kids. But that's all the time we have today. So like Susan said, if you wanna check out those resources, again, the website is safesecurekids.org. [music] 27:38 JS: If you or a loved one needs help, a local Sexual Assault Center is available 24/7. Call 1888-772-7227. For more information or find your local center online at pcar.org. Together we can end sexual violence. Any user opinions expressed on PA Centered by staff or their guests are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of PCAR or PCAR's funders.