Child abuse is a serious issue that affects millions of children worldwide. According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 1 billion children globally have experienced physical, sexual, or emotional violence or neglect in the past year.

Erin's Law is a law that requires all public schools in the United States to implement age-appropriate sexual abuse and assault prevention education. The law is named after Erin Merryn, a survivor of child sexual abuse who became an advocate for such education.

While talking about Erin's Law can leave School Counselors and students feeling uncomfortable, these uncomfortable conversations are so necessary to keep our students safe. Today, we'll be talking about why we need to take on this role and steps to make it easier.

Here are some resources that can help:

• Protect Yourself Rules (YouTube)
• NYS Erin's Law Resources
• My Safety Lessons on TpT

Grab the Show Notes: Counselingessentials.org/podcast

Join Perks Counseling Club Membership and get the lessons, small group and individual counseling materials you need. Join now and get your first month free when you sign up for 3 months!

Connect with Carol:

• TpT Store
• Counseling Essentials Website
• Instagram
• Facebook
• Elementary School Counselor Exchange Facebook Group
• Caught In The Middle School Counselors Facebook Group
• High School Counselor Connection Facebook Group

Mentioned in this episode:

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You're listening to the Counselor Tap podcast, a show for school counselors

looking for easy to implement strategies, how to tips, collaboration, and a little spark of

joy.

I'm Carol Miller, your host.

I'm a full time school counselor and the face behind counseling essentials.

I'm all about creating simplified systems, data driven practices, and using creative

approaches to gauge students.

If you're looking for a little inspiration to

help you make a big impact on student growth and success, you're in the right place,

because we're better together.

Ready to chat?

Let's dive in.

Hi, everyone.

It's Carol.

Thanks for joining me for another episode of

Counselor Chat.

Today we're going to be talking about Aaron's

Law and how, as school counselors, we can help incorporate teaching students about Aaron's

Law in our schools.

Now, if you're not familiar with Aaron's Law,

it's a law that requires all public schools in the US.

To implement age appropriate sexual abuse and assault prevention education.

The law is named after Aaron Marin.

She was a survivor of child sexual abuse who

then went on to become an advocate for such education.

Now, I don't know if you're like me, but for years I felt weird about teaching Aaron's Law.

Like, I wanted to put my finger on my nose and say, not, it not me.

It's not my job to teach it or help kids know about it.

It wasn't a topic that I felt comfortable with or really wanted to grab as my own.

I wanted someone else do it.

I thought it was the classroom teacher's job,

or the health teacher's job, or the school nurse, anyone except for myself.

But you know what? The more I've been doing this and the longer

I've been a school counselor.

And as I think I've gone down from working

with high schoolers to middle schoolers and now elementary, I just realized how important

it is as school counselors that we take this on, that we become the one that talks about

sexual abuse and prevention education, because it's us that our kids are coming to and

disclosing this information.

It's really heartbreaking when that happens.

And I can tell you from first hand experience, it has happened to me a number of times, and

it's always an uncomfortable topic to discuss and to talk about, but one that at the end of

the day, if we hear that story from a kid and we can do something to help them, it's all

worth it.

It's what it's all about.

So if we're talking and teaching about Aaron's Law, we have to really start with the basics.

We have to begin by discussing what sexual abuse and assault are and why it's important

to talk about them.

And it's really important to use age

appropriate language and examples to help kids understand.

We can't start using the word assault in kindergarten class.

They'll just look at us like, what? What are you talking about?

I might not even use the word assault until they're at least in middle school because we

are dealing with a really sensitive topic.

It's also really important to use interactive

and engaging materials videos, online resources, books, and maybe things that you

put together to help kids learn about boundaries and personal space and really

identifying what's appropriate versus what's inappropriate.

We also have to make sure that we promote open communications.

We have to encourage students to ask questions and to share their thoughts and experiences.

We also have to be ready for if they disclose too much to kind of shut that down and say,

oh, I want to hear this, but let's wait for a time when it's just you and me.

I'll call you after class and we can talk about this more because we have so much here

to talk about.

But we have to make sure that we are creating

a safe and a non judgmental space where students really feel comfortable discussing

these sensitive topics.

And it's our job to also empower students to

teach them about the importance of reporting abuse and assault and how to do so safely, as

well as to encourage them how to speak up if they or someone else they know has been abused

or assaulted.

And it's also really important to involve

parents and caregivers.

And like our students, we have to educate them

as well about the importance of the program and to provide them with resources to help

them talk to their kids about sexual abuse and assault as well.

Now, here's the thing.

Different states have different requirements.

And while Aaron's Law is required in the majority of the states, it's not in all of

them quite yet.

There's still a handful that Aaron's Law is.

They're working on the laws to pass it, but it hasn't been passed yet.

So we have to remember that by a handful I mean, it's a very slim minority of places.

But how we talk to kids and whether we need consent or not is different from state to

state as well.

I'm in New York and we do not need consent.

It is a mandatory requirement that we teach Erin's Law, so we're going to send out a

letter.

In fact, we already sent one home to our

parents this year, but it's more of an informational.

Hey, this is what we're doing.

We're talking about safety, and we listed all

the different safety topics that we're going to be talking about.

In addition to safe touch, unsafe touch and uncomfortable touch, we also are talking about

the eight never nevers and how we don't do certain things like jump in a pool without an

adult or use sharp objects without an adult, or pet a dog that doesn't belong to us or ride

a bike without a helmet or wear a seatbelt.

Or not wear a seatbelt.

Actually, when we're riding in a car.

So we talk about all different kinds of

safety, personal safety, sexual safety, all of it.

We also have to remember when we're talking about Aaron's Law, that it's an ongoing

process.

It's not something that usually is a one time

deal.

It's something that we have to really have our

kids be aware of all the time.

I think mostly what I want my kids to know is

to be able to identify it, to be able to use their voice and say either stop no or how to

report those, I think are the most important things.

Now, here's a few facts for you to know.

Child abuse is really serious and it affects

millions of kids worldwide.

According to the World Health Organizations,

an estimated 1 billion children globally have experienced physical, sexual, or emotional

violence or neglect in the past year.

When I read that, I was blown away.

1 billion kids globally.

That's a lot of kids.

Child abuse can also take many forms, including physical abuse, sexual abuse, abuse,

emotional abuse, and neglect.

And children.

This is no surprise to any of us, but children who experience abuse are more likely to

experience mental health issues, substance abuse, and physical health problems.

Child abuse also occurs in all types of families and in all social and economic

levels.

And unfortunately, child abuse is often not

reported and many cases go on unreported at all.

And the majority of children abuse cases are by someone the child knows and trusts, such as

a parent, a relative, a teacher, or caregiver.

Child abuse can have long term effects on

children's development and the ability to form healthy relationships later in life.

But child abuse prevention is possible, and it starts with education and awareness.

Child abuse can also be prevented by promoting positive parenting practices, providing

support to families in need, and educating children and adults about abuse prevention.

In addition to the letter that we're sending home or that we sent home, I also have a

little flyer that I put together with some of these facts for families, just so that they

were aware of how prevalent child abuse is in our society.

And I do have a copy of this that I'm going to add in the show notes so that if you want to

send this to your parents as well, that you have this information.

It's just a one page flyer.

It's quick, it's easy to look at, and it

really has all the basics on there.

So I think it's pretty informative and I think

that you'll really like it.

So please check out the show notes to download

it.

Now, as we're talking about Aaron's Law, the

way that I teach it is I break it down kind of by grade level.

And we start because I'm in elementary school now, we start in kindergarten, and we start by

the basic safeties.

So how do we keep ourselves safe?

I mentioned some of these a little bit before.

We talk about the eight never nevers.

So we talk about how to be safe with our lives how to protect ourselves personally, right?

So wear a helmet when we ride a bike, wear a seatbelt when we're in the car, those types of

things.

And that's usually our first lesson.

We kind of do that very basic lesson for kindergarten, 1st, 2nd grade and then when we

get up until third grade, we expect them to know that and so we move on to more of bike

safety because so many of our kids are starting to get bikes and learn how to ride

the bike.

So we really focus in on how do you ride a

bike or something with wheels safely.

And so we talk about the rules of the road and

crossing between cars and looking both ways before you cross the street and all that kind

of stuff.

And from there we move on to safe, unsafe and

uncomfortable touches and we really describe what they mean and so we look at and we

discuss the different types of touches and I have different examples that I give to kids.

So if I was on the playground and I was with my friend and they were pulling my hair while

we were waiting in line, what kind of touch would that be?

Would that be unsafe? Would it be safe?

Would it be uncomfortable? And so if it hurt, it's probably an unsafe

touch.

If it didn't hurt but we don't like them

touching our hair, it's more of an uncomfortable touch.

So we kind of describe the differences between those two.

So unsafe hurts us physically and an uncomfortable one just we don't like it, makes

us feel yucky.

So we talk about those differences, we then go

on to talk about secrets and the types of different secrets there are.

There are safe secrets to keep and unsafe secrets to keep.

And why would you keep a secret versus why would you disclose a secret?

Because some secrets are safe.

Like having a birthday party for your mom and

surprising her.

Well, that is a safe secret to have.

But if someone's touching us and makes us feel uncomfortable and tells us don't tell because

then they'll take something away from us or they'll hurt someone or something or that we

care about, then that's unsafe and we need to do something about it, then we also talk about

how we say stop.

Don't hurt me.

Don't touch me.

I don't like that.

And what to do afterwards, especially if it keeps going on, we report.

So my friends, this is what we do with the younger grades.

With the older grades we go more into the safe secrets versus the unsafe secrets and what we

should do when we're in situations that make us feel uncomfortable.

How do we get out of that? We do a lot of problem solving.

So it's really great to help kids understand how to problem solve and to identify what they

should do in a given situation.

Now we can't prepare for every situation but I

think if we guide them through some, they'll know what to do if they ever encounter them.

So while child abuse and Aaron's Law can be a really Ucky subject to talk about, it is so

needed.

And like I said earlier, we are the ones that

our kids come to or we want to come to.

We want them to disclose to us things that

just aren't right that will help to keep them safe.

So we really want to be on the forefront of teaching Aaron's Law and helping our kids

understand about it.

And we also need to know why it's so important

to do so, because it affects so many kids on so many levels in all different kinds of

families, billions of kids across the world.

So I hope this was helpful.

If you are looking for some links for different things, check the Show Notes because

I will also have links to resources that I have available as well as some of some of my

friends.

I'll link to some places to get some stats and

like I said, that freebie to send home to your parents so that they understand what you're

doing.

I'll link that in the Show Notes as well.

So until we chat again, have a great week.

Thanks for listening to today's episode of

Counselor Chat.

All of the links I talked about can be found

in the Show Notes and@counselingsentials.org Podcast.

Be sure to hit, follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast player.

And if you would be so kind to leave a review, I'd really appreciate it.

Want to connect? Send me a DM on Facebook or Instagram at

counseling essentials.

Until next time.

Can't wait till we chat.