December 2023

­­­­­­Dear Friend of Children:

As another year ends, we reflect back on what MassKids has accomplished in 2023, thanks to the support of citizens like you who believe “It’s only fair that each child be cherished.”

Since 2002, MassKids has been a leader in the effort to prevent child sexual abuse in the Commonwealth. Our Enough Abuse Campaign has been building networks of community leaders, citizens and survivors to address the issue; educating parents; training child/family-serving professionals; and promoting specific policies to strengthen the capacity of schools and community organizations to keep children safe.

We hope you will choose MassKids and the Enough Abuse Campaign as your charity of choice this Holiday season and join us in carrying out our cutting-edge work to keep more children safe from the devastating yet preventable effects of child sexual abuse.

Here are a few highlights of our work this past year:

• Launched the “Safety STARS” initiative to deliver to schools and community organizations high-quality in-person and online trainings; cutting-edge assessment and prevention tools; and expert technical assistance to strengthen their policies and practices to prevent child sexual abuse.
• Educated now over 15,000 employees in 165 schools in 9 states using our evidence-informed and highly-rated curriculum, “Enough! Preventing Child Sexual Abuse in My School”.
• Led the effort to pass crucial child sexual abuse prevention legislation, as featured last month in a Boston 25 Investigation report that alerted the public to the crisis of child sexual abuse in Massachusetts schools.
• Launched our curriculum, “Understanding and Responding to Sexual Behaviors of Children” to address growing requests from schools and parents for guidance to address the problematic sexual behaviors of children.   
• Expanded our “Straight Talk About Child Sexual Abuse: A Prevention Guide for Parents” with new sections on the 25 Adult Boundary-Violating Behaviors parents should educate their children about, and on ways to ensure child safety from sexual exploitation on the internet (in English and Spanish.)
• Delivered numerous trainings, e.g. for Boston Children’s Hospital medical providers; Massachusetts Mentor human service staff; Franklin County parents and professionals; New England Resident Service Coordinators; Texas child welfare providers; South Dakota Children’s Advocacy Centers staff; etc.
• Convened a 90-minute Virtual Legislative Briefing to educate citizens about a package of bills aimed at preventing child sexual abuse in Massachusetts. 
• Assembled bimonthly the States Policy Exchange, a virtual, peer-support and networking resource that joins advocates and survivors from over 32 states working to pass child sexual abuse prevention laws.
• Currently serving on the Research Policy and Practice Group for a CDC research initiative with Prevent Child Abuse America to study the effect of child sexual abuse laws on reported cases. 

At MassKids, our resourceful 2-person staff, engaged Board members and committed volunteers work diligently to ensure that every dollar raised is spent strategically to take our prevention programs to more communities. Know that your support will result in tangible outcomes and help us reach our goals faster and for more children.

We believe that working together we can create transformative social change to end child sexual abuse. 

We are troublemakers for kids.

We are building a movement. 

Join us. 

Jetta Bernier

Executive Director

MassKids