GREENFIELD — The Children’s Advocacy Center of Franklin County and North Quabbin looked back on a year of new initiatives and highlighted the growing problems beneath the surface of child sexual abuse at its annual “Hope, Healing & Help Breakfast.”
Sitting on tables in the Greenfield Community College Dining Commons on Friday morning were 88 new pairs of children’s shoes. According to Carol Conragan, executive director of the Children’s Advocacy Center, each pair represented a child the organization’s team — which added three new full-time staff members and welcomed Family Advocate Abby Bliss as a full-time mental health clinician — has helped over the last year.
“That’s super exciting for me,” Conragan said, “because it’s always all about the kids.”
The organization also incorporated cognitive behavioral therapy into its treatment of children who initiate “problematic sexual behavior.” According to Conragan, the therapy model moves away from the common treatment initiators receive. Instead of using the same approach for adult sex offenders, the model avoids stigmatizing the initiator. She stressed the importance of the approach amid the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), which has “exacerbated” the issue with its representations of sex.
“We want to turn the understanding around about these children,” Conragan said.
Given that the caregivers of the children involved must participate in the therapy model, the method provides a path forward for parents who may experience “overwhelming waves” of shock, shame or fear over the problematic sexual behavior, Conragan noted.
Along with cognitive behavioral therapy, the organization has also expanded its prevention programs in the past year, including through an educational series on consent and healthy relationships, and online safety trainings for high schoolers. The center also rolled out the Handle with Care initiative at local schools to “connect the dots between what happens in a child’s life outside of school and the support they may need once they arrive at school,” as the Children’s Advocacy Center’s Prevention Coordinator Laura Banks described.
Conragan then turned her attention to another issue growing online.
Although the center’s team has always helped children who face commercial sexual exploitation — or when a child “engages, agrees to engage in or offers to engage in sexual conduct in exchange for money, clothing, food, shelter, education, goods or care,” its website explains — Conragan said the prevalence of online platforms has increased the issue. Through gaming sites and social media apps like Snapchat, Conragan said “invisible predators” are increasingly exploiting children behind screens.
Keynote speakers and lead mentors Talia Magnani and Samone Best each faced this kind of abuse at the hands of a family member or friend. The pair now mentor children and teens who have faced similar exploitation through Legacy Mentoring.
In Berkshire County, Magnani, director of Legacy Mentoring, said about 90% of the kids she and other mentors have helped were exploited online, while Best said the majority of the children she helps in Hampden County faced exploitation in person from predators in school parking lots and at gas stations, for example.
While taking the children and teens to engage in activities like horseback riding, Magnani and Best add support and education into conversations. The mentors also help the kids with transportation, whether by providing a ride or helping them navigate the bus routes, and give them their phone numbers so they can call or text anytime. Along with emotional support, Magnani said the children and teens fill them in on everyday achievements and tidbits like, for one 11-year-old, the progress of his mustache.
“A year and a half later [into the program], he’s flourishing in school. He has a mustache,” Magnani said as the audience laughed with her. “He’s not self-harming, so the program really worked for him.”
Magnani then played a voice recording from one of the teenagers she mentored.
“[Magnani’s] there for stuff that has to do with my case and stuff that’s outside of it,” the survivor said. “She helps with how to deal with the feelings. She makes me feel like I have a purpose, and after something traumatic happens to you, it’s really hard to feel that. … It feels good to be able to take a breath knowing that you have those people there for you.”
With a smile, Magnani told the attendees that the speaker has been accepted into college. After listening in silence to her words, the crowd clapped and cheered.
