Dear Friend of Children:
Reflecting back on 2021, MassKids is proud of its accomplishments for children and that we met the additional challenges caused by the pandemic.
Shifting our in-person trainings to virtual webinars, we succeeded in training hundreds of school and youth leaders about child sexual abuse and how to implement specific policies to prevent it.
Our Enough! online course on child sexual abuse prevention and its robust bank of resources reached over 2,000 school employees this year and feedback has been over the moon. One teacher in Lowell wrote: “I have been a teacher for over 30 years and this training was one of, if not THE BEST, trainings I have ever taken.” In 2022, we will develop a new course to help parents and child-serving professionals learn how to identify and respond to sexual abuse committed by youth against youth, and we will release a model Code of Conduct for schools that reviewers have called “…a breakthrough piece of work.”
In June we issued “A Call to Action for Policymakers and Advocates,” the only resource in the country to track child sexual abuse prevention legislation in all 50 states and to recommend model provisions that every state should adopt. Over 80 advocates from 25 states learned how to push for prevention legislation through our 3-part Webinar Series and, in 2022, technical assistance opportunities will be available through MassKids’ bimonthly State Policy Exchange meetings.
We led the “Pass the Prevention Package!” campaign to enact legislation that would mandate training of all school and youth organization employees; significantly improve screening of job applicants; prohibit confidentiality agreements and practices that would allow employees engaged in sexual misconduct from securing positions in other schools; and close the Age of Consent loophole so abusers can’t claim sexual relationships with students over 16 are consensual. In 2022 we will work tirelessly to ensure these bills pass and that Massachusetts children are the safest in any state from sexual abuse.
MassKids is a small organization with a 60-year history of effective advocacy on behalf of our state’s most vulnerable children. Every dollar raised is spent strategically for the greatest impact. This Holiday Season, join us in the movement to prevent child sexual abuse through your generous gift. Help us reach our shared goals for more children and faster!
