April 1, 20205 (#WearTealDay)
If you are following this Blog, you will know that I have published a book, “Three Kidnapped, Three Siblings, Three Furies,” about three types of sibling abuse: emotional, physical, and sexual. You can find it on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DS6L67NT.
April is a designated month for several types of abuse prevention. It is National Child Abuse Prevention Month and Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM). Both of these April themes include Child Sexual Abuse (a.k.a CSA), and many concentrate on April as Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Month.
SAAM has a “Day of Action and Teal Day” on the first Tuesday of April (April 1st, 2025). On this day, you can show your support for survivors of sexual harassment and abuse by wearing teal, the color of sexual violence prevention. Another way to show support is to use, where relevant, the hashtag #SAAM2025 on Social Media. Other common hashtags for SAAM are #WearTealDay, #UnitedWeChange, #TogetherWeAct. This year, the organizers of SAAM specifically ask for the usage of #VALOR to recognize the work of ValorUS, which advocates for sexual abuse prevention.
Advocates for Child Abuse Prevention hold a “Go Blue Day,” encouraging people to support child abuse prevention by wearing blue on the first Friday of April (April 4th, 2025). Common hashtags on Social Media used for Child Abuse Prevention Month include #ChildAbusePreventionMonth, #WearBlueDay, and #EveryChildNeedsAHero.
Some advocates for Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Month make billboards to encourage victims to break their silence. For example, the advocacy group End1in4.org (see https://www.end1in4.org/) has a “See The Signs” campaign in April, placing large roadside billboards to get people thinking about CSA and supporting survivors. Some of the billboards, for example, show a child looking very sad, and the title is: “Your child. Sad or sexually abused?” Among the relevant hashtags for social media posts are #ActToEndIt and #NotMyShame.
Although I have written a book that closely reflects my real-life experiences of sibling abuse and included incidents of parental abuse in my previous novel, “The Overlife” (www.amazon.com/dp/191685219X), I still have a long way to go in discovering other people’s writings on child abuse, particularly child sexual abuse. I read many relevant references before writing “Three Kidnapped, Three Siblings, Three Furies,” but much more is available, mainly in practical advice for parents and memoirs. As I discussed in my last blog, I wrap my actual experiences and accurate facts about abuse in fiction, which has the potential to reach a wider audience and has been a fruitful genre in my case.
A fierce advocate for child sexual abuse prevention who I have met recently via Social Media is Feather Berkower, who founded Parenting Safe Children. A good place to visit if you want to prevent your child from being a victim of CSA as a parent is Feather Berkower’s website: https://parentingsafechildren.com/. You can also check out her Instagram account @parentingsafechildren. She runs a live Zoom workshop on April 5, 2025, and April 12, 2025, marking April 2025 as Child Abuse Prevention Month.
Here are the details of the workshop, which I strongly urge you to attend.
Parenting Safe Children Parent Workshop
Parents, caregivers, extended family, and anyone who cares for and about children will receive a certificate of attendance and materials.
Part 1 April 5, 2025
9:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. MST / 11:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. EST
Part 2 April 12, 2025
9:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. MST / 11:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. EST
This Parenting Safe Children Workshop is presented live by Feather Berkower via Zoom. Each individual person present in the workshop is required to purchase a ticket. To register and buy a ticket, go to parentingsafechildren.com/calendar. If you cannot attend the live workshop, you can register for a pre-recorded option on the same webpage. For the live workshops, the cost is $65.00 +$4.57 fee. Sales end on April 12, 2025. The ticket price includes a 5.0-hour workshop plus workshop material handouts. Tickets are non-refundable and non-transferable to other workshop dates.
I have my ticket, and I am looking forward to the workshops!
Another good website that advocates for child sexual abuse prevention is https://www.stopitnow.org/.
I also recommend the Instagram account @siblingabuseforeverended. @siblingabuseforeverended has a website: https://www.safesiblings.org/.
Common hashtags Feather uses in her social media posts are #bodysafetyconversation #childsexabuseprevention #parentingsafechildren #bodysafetytalks #parentworkshop #EndChildSexualAbuse #adultresponsibility #offlimits #grooming #CourageousConversation.
Feather Berkower has been kind enough to point me toward authors who have written memoirs on CSA and who I didn’t know. Thank you, Feather!
Examples of her recommendations and books I found while I was buying this literature are:
- Feather Berkower and Sandy K. Wurtele: “Off Limits: A Parent’s Guide To Keeping Kids Safe From Sexual Abuse.”
- Jane Epstein: “I Feel Real Guilty.” She runs a support website: https://www.siblingsexualtrauma.com
- Babs Walters: “Facing The Jaguar.”
- Risa Shaw: “Not Child’s Play.”
- Alice Perle: “Resolve.”
- Liz Kinchen: “Light In Bandaged Places.”
I am grateful to Feather for directing me to these other books and the women who wrote them. This list has helped me find other child abuse books, such as “Everyone Was Silent” by Diane Tarantini.
Another advocacy group for victims of sibling sexual trauma is 5WAVES; see their website 5WAVES.org. It was founded by five women across different time zones, united by their personal experience with sibling sexual trauma – either as survivors or as parents affected by it.
It’s encouraging and comforting to witness all these brave and practical efforts to protect children and comfort survivors, encouraging them to speak out. If you read my book “Three Kidnapped, Three Siblings, Three Furies,” you will learn that it fits into this context, even though it is a fiction novel.