GREENFIELD — U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern announced a $879,000 federal earmark for Northampton-based nonprofit Stop It Now! on Wednesday at the Children’s Advocacy Center of Franklin County and North Quabbin.
“There isn’t a lot of good news coming out of Washington these days, so I can’t tell you how happy I am that today we are celebrating good news,” McGovern said. “This is critical work that will make our community safer. It is an investment that will protect children and save many families from unnecessary pain.”
According to Stop It Now! Director Jenny Coleman, the organization will dedicate the financial boost to strengthening the network of child sexual abuse prevention work in western Massachusetts.
Although the organization has not yet finalized its plans for the funding, Coleman envisions the nonprofit pursuing research into the best “evidence-based” prevention tools and forming an advisory board with state and local leaders working in abuse prevention, as well as parents and professionals who interact with children through their work. Through these projects, Coleman said the organization will assess the support already in place and gaps to address.
“The reach of this work and funding goes far beyond this one organization,” McGovern continued.
“Earmark funding often has a negative connotation, but what this really represents is an investment in Massachusetts and in its children,” said Meg Bossong, executive director of the Massachusetts Society for a World Free of Sexual Harm by Youth (MASOC), an organization in Pittsfield that provides education and trainings centered on child sexual abuse prevention for professionals working with children.
“Western Mass. and all the rural parts of the commonwealth are really incubators of incredible prevention work,” Bossong said. “We know how to be in collaboration, we know how to be in relationship, we know the value of children and families being in community with other caring adults.”
By creating an advisory board to strengthen abuse prevention efforts, Coleman said the organization will model the importance of “[talking] with each other one-on-one” about often uncomfortable truths like child sexual abuse.
“Quite frankly, the people who know best what this community needs are members of this community, not some bureaucrat in Washington who’s never been here,” McGovern continued. “This is a collaboration, and we want to continue this collaboration in the future because the work that is being done here is essential, it’s important, it’s vital and it could save lives.”
By joining forces with other organizations to root out child sexual abuse, “It looks more like [survivors] are being cared for instead of being passed off,” Coleman explained.
The funding will also help bolster services that Stop It Now! already provides, including its WhatsOK helpline and website for teens ages 14 to 21 with concerns around sexual thoughts and behaviors. According to Coleman, the helpline questions often relate to age gaps in relationships, consent and representations of sex online.
“The sweet-spot target audience is getting to those folks who could cross the line,” Coleman said.
According to Micah Waxman, the lead WhatsOK consultant and training associate at Stop It Now!, the helpline helps give teens and young adults a “gut check” on “developmentally appropriate behavior.”
“It’s not good if you just have an echo chamber and you don’t have a safe place to ask questions without judgement,” Waxman said.
For Coleman, successful prevention often depends on creating avenues like the helpline for difficult conversations.
“We have amazing tools and resources,” Coleman said, “but they don’t mean anything if we can’t make those relationships, if we can’t build trust, if we can’t help folks feel safe to ask for help and reach out.”
