A Non-Clinical Referral Tool to Help Identify Problematic Child Sexual Behavior: Development, Training, and Initial User Feedback

ABSTRACT

Early identification of children and youth who engage in problematic sexual behavior is important for all parties involved, such as children who exhibit and are impacted by the behavior. There are several reliable and valid identification tools that can be used to recognize problematic sexual behavior in children and youth (PSB-CY) in clinical practice; however, professionals who work with children in non-clinical settings (i.e., child development centers, youth programs, and schools) often have limited resources and tools when they encounter PSB-CY. This paper describes the development, content, and user feedback of a referral tool (RT) that was designed to help identify incidents of PSB-CY for use with military agencies and schools. Specifically, the RT was designed to help professionals, who may have observed or who may have been made aware of sexual behaviors in children and youth, organize their observations of the behavior in alignment with evidence-based information about PSB-CY and consistently document these occurrences. The RT guides users in determining if the observed behavior is normative, cautionary, or problematic and promotes informed decisions about whether the behavior needs to be referred to those who have experience using clinical tools for further review and the identification of next steps for supporting the children and families involved. Early adopters provided feedback on the use of the RT. The feedback suggested that the tool was user-friendly, understandable, and helpful as they made objective decisions about how to identify and handle referrals of PSB-CY.

KEYWORDS:

• Identification of problematic sexual behavior among children and youth
• non-clinical referral tool
• training school and child and youth personnel
• user feedback

Disclosure statement

No authors have financial or personal relationships that might bias the work being submitted.

Additional information

Funding

The Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness at Penn State is the result of apartnership funded by the Department of Defense between the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Military Community and Family Policy and the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture through acooperative agreement with the Pennsylvania State University. The work leverages funds by the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture and Hatch Appropriations under Project #PEN04767 and Accession #1026653. The opinions and assertions contained herein are the private views of the authors and are not to be construed as official or as reflecting the views of any of the sponsor organizations listed.

Notes on contributors

Jill A. Schulte

Jill Schulte, M.Ed., is a Research Program Manager at The Pennsylvania State University for the Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness, University Park, PA. She has managed several research projects that are designed to develop, train, and evaluate evidence-informed and evidence-based programs and resources to support military professionals who work with the Family Advocacy Program.

Mandie K. Boone

Mandie K. Boone, B.A., is a Research and Evaluation Associate at The Pennsylvania State University for the Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness, University Park, PA. Mandie has worked in the field of Mental Health and has worked on several research projects that support the health and well-being of our military service members and their families.

Keith R. Aronson

Keith R. Aronson, Ph.D., received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Penn State University and is the Co-Director of the Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness and a Research Professor in the Department of Biobehavioral Health at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. He is also the Associate Director of the Social Science Research Institute at Penn State University.

Daniel F. Perkins

Daniel F. Perkins, Ph.D., received his Ph.D. from Michigan State University in Family and Child Ecology and is the Director and founder of the Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness and a Professor of Family and Youth Resiliency and Policy at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA. His primary research focus involves translating science into action by providing comprehensive science-based programs and technical assistance to professionals working with military and veteran families.