INTRODUCTION

An earlier study compared the short-tem effectiveness of two different kinds of child protection programmes offered in South Australian state primary schools (Protective Behaviours); and New Zealand primary schools (Keeping Ourselves Safe) when used with children aged 5-8 years. The combined study involved 378 children drawn from 15 schools. The schools were chosen to represent the socioeconomic, cultural and ethnic mix of South Australian and New Zealand societies. To ensure that we had a spread of abilities, teachers were asked to select boys and girls from each group, of average, above average and below average levels.

Interview schedules were designed on "problem solving" lines to assess children's safety knowledge and safety strategies for a wide range of potentially dangerous situation. The same schedule was used in both countries.

The children were interviewed twice. Although all of the Australian children had been introduced to Protective Behaviours between the first and second interviews, there was no marked improvement in the quality of their responses. At re-interview, the majority of Australian students still could not provide "safe " suggestions to a number of "What if..." questions, including ones involving safety with strangers, staying safe when lost, and dealing with baby sitter who wanted to play and "undressing game." The majority of children did not differentiate between secrets to keep and secrets to tell and did not understand their right to reject inappropriate touching.

While some children had made progress, most of these came from the oldest group (aged 8-9 years) and had been taught by an enthusiastic teacher who used Protective Behaviours as a day-to-day teaching strategy, and had written an integrated curriculum which involved parents.

The first evaluation supported the superiority of the New Zealand Keeping Ourselves Safe programme in developing personal safety concepts in young children. The disappointing South Australian results were attributed to:

• lack of continuity in teaching: a year after the initial interview, none of the children were currently taught by teachers who had previously taught Protective Behaviours;
• the fact that teachers used the programme selectively, concentrating on safety in the classroom and playground and avoiding the more sensitive but vital aspects of child protection relating to the adult-child power differential and children's rights;
• the lack of parental involvement;
• the lack of teaching materials to help teachers tackle the sensitive issues which they found uncomfortable;
• the use of American terminology which was not part of children's everyday language;
• children's inability to grasp complex concepts and generalise them to different situations.

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FOLLOW-UP STUDY: NEW ZEALAND

The initial superiority of the Keeping Ourselves Safe programme had already been determined. In December 1991, 117 of the original New Zealand subjects were re-interviewed in order to determine longer-term effects. These children attended schools in the Porirua (Wellington) area, New Plymouth, and rural Taranaki.

The following aspects of the New Zealand Keeping Ourselves Safe programme seemed to offer advantages over the Protective Behaviours programme:

• The New Zealand schools are supported by Police Education Officers.
• The programme is tightly structured.
• Teaching materials are provided for every stage of the programme.
• The Programme is taught throughout the school at a particular time.
• Parent involvement and evaluation is built into the programme.

Gains were measured in terms of safety knowledge or evidence of safety skills acquired. For example, pre-testing showed that some children did not know what they could do to stay safe if they became separated from a parent in a city department store. Some said that they would look for someone with a kind face and ask that person to take them home. Others would attempt to walk home, irrespective of the distance. A year later, some of these children said that they would tell the person at the Information Desk or tell a shop assistant who they wee and what had happened an ask for an announcement to be made on the public address system. This was then calculated as a "gain" in safety knowledge.

As well as the previously found gains in the short term (measured at the end of the year in which the programme was taught), further gains or consolidation of knowledge and skills in the following year occurred, even thought there was no further formal teaching of the programme.

Additional gains followed repetition of the programme two years after it's original implementation. We found that gender, race and age had no effect on children's gains.

There were substantial differences in achievement which related to the variables of teacher commitment, parent's income levels, and parental participation in the programme.

Teachers classified as "highly committed" achieved twice the number of gains as those with "average commitment". The highly committed teachers used the programme conscientiously, often alongside curriculum to develop self-esteem and assertiveness skills. They integrated safety concepts into their day-to-day teaching strategies, provided parents with reports of children's progress, and indicated how the parents could help. Children in these classes were confident of their rights and confident that their teachers and parents would help them if they were concerned about someone's behaviour. They knew that they were not obliged to keep uncomfortable secrets, least of all those about "rude" behaviour. This group of children could suggest several safe strategies for handling potentially dangerous situation.

We found that prior to the Keeping Ourselves Safe programme, children from low income families were relatively disadvantaged in all of the personal safety knowledge and skills we measured. For example, compared with middle class children, the children from lower income families were:

• less likely to believe that their parents would protect them from other adults who behaved inappropriately;
• more likely to have already sought help from parents to stop unwanted touching from relative and been rejected;
• more likely to believe that they have to keep all adult's secrets and would punished if they "told", especially if the secrets involved "rude" behaviour;
• at higher risk form truly dangerous strangers because their understanding of a "stranger" only related to males with a stereotypical appearance (mean or ugly looking, leering, wearing masks, balaclavas and black clothing and driving old black cars);

While the Keeping Ourselves Safe programme led to gains across all social classes, it was clear that middle class children made more frequent gains that their classmates from lower income families. Between the first and second interviews, all middle class children had learned that they had the right to stop unwanted and inappropriate touching. By comparison, only 21 percent of low income family children had made progress in acquiring this message. Half of the children from low income families continued to think that if "rude" behaviour occurred, it was their own fault and they would be blamed and punished if they reported it.

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DISCUSSION

There is evidence that the Keeping Ourselves Safe programme increased skills and knowledge in all of the measured areas associated with self protection in both the sort and longer term. Repetition of the program me led to further gains. Children who had been exposed to the programme twice revealed that they possessed all the knowledge considered to be essential for personal safety. They were aware that some people use tricks, bribes, secrets and blackmail to persuade other to do things they would not normally do. They knew that it was important to report and stop "rude" behaviour and they could also suggest several different strategies for dealing with potentially dangerous situations.

Another investigation of Keeping Ourselves Safe, which used an untreated control group for comparison purposes showed that children made "substantial gains in knowledge of the key prevention concepts after participation in the programmeŠ these children show consolidation of learning with increased recall at follow up assessment".

Children from low income families were relatively disadvantaged in terms of their safety knowledge and skills. Even before the programme began, these children had a lower level of knowledge about personal safety than children from middle income families. Once the programme had been used, it was also clear that they made the poorest gains. A year later, the gap was still evident. We believe that the results relating to parents' income levels are best understood by looking at class differences in parental involvement. When parents were involved in school programmes and evaluated children's learning, they were considered to be more approachable, more reliable, and more helpful by their children than parents with no involvement. Only 17 percent of children from low income families reported that a parent had tried to teach personal safety at home compared with 53 percent of middle class parents.

Overall, middle class children were significantly better prepared to resist and report sexual misbehavior because middle class school tended to have more parent participation in their programmes and parent involvement proved to be a key mediating variable. Recent research confirms that children who are taught personal safety skills by parents and teachers in a co-operative effort are much more likely to remember them than children who are taught only by their teachers.

Our findings are consistent with the research literature which shows that children from low income families, especially boys, are more vulnerable to abuse than children in middle class families. It is important to remember however, that middle class children are not immune from sexual victimisation and their superior knowledge was not acquired by virtue of their status but by a successful combination of teacher-parent effort.

Some children revealed that they were often placed in hazardous situations. Six-year-olds acted as baby sitters for babies and toddlers, had no child-minder overnight or were already playing "undressing games" with adolescent minders. Some children were worried by the behaviour of their mothers' boyfriends, their siblings and occasionally their grandparents. Some five and six year olds reported that their parents never listened to them, never believed them and could not be approached when drunk. These vulnerable children were, not surprisingly, the most cynical and the most difficult to convince that they were valued and had any rights. During the interviews, three boys and two girls inadvertently reported sexual abuse in response to a general question about children's fear. A sixth child had just disclosed sibling incest to police.

One survey of South Australian parents found that child abuse came fourth on a list of twenty-two issues which concerned them. While 45 percent of parents were concerned about child abuse, they were also reluctant to attend parenting courses on prevention and they regarded professionals with scepticism. None of the schools in the present study found it easy to involve parents in their programmes. Both Australian and New Zealand school principals complained that less than a third of the school population had a parent representative at child protection programme information sessions. Most parents were content for schools to take full responsibility for the task.

Professional parents often explained that they were "too busy" to attend meetings and due to a false belief that sexual abuse wasn't likely to happen in their family, they regarded their own attendance as unnecessary.

Successful schools attracted parents by arranging day and evening meetings with child car facilities and refreshments. The emphasised the importance of participation by both parents because fathers otherwise tend to disassociate themselves and leave all aspects of child protection to mothers.

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SUMMARY

The results show the benefits of a well designed child protection programme. Teacher commitment, socioeconomic status and parental involvement were shown to be the key variables affecting gains in children's knowledge and skills. Low levels of socioeconomic status can be compensated for by maximising teacher commitment and parental participation. While sound teacher training and support materials for child protection programmes are vital, the greatest challenge for schools is how to persuade parents that all children are at risk unless parents understand and encourage their children to practise personal safety skills. Quite clearly, the easiest and most effective way of educating children for safety is for parents to work in partnership with their children's school.

NOTES

Professor Freda Briggs is Professor: Child Development in the De Lissa Institute of Early Childhood and Family Studies, University of South Australia, Lorne Avenue, Magill, South Australia 5072. Telephone (08) 302 4583 Fax (09) 302 4394. E-mail: freda.briggs@unisa.edu.au

Russell Hawkins is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology, University of South Australia. E-mail: russell.hawkins@unisa.edu.au

The short-term effectiveness of Protective Behaviours and Keeping Ourselves Safe has been reported in:

Briggs, F. (1991). Keeping ourselves safe: A Personal safety curriculum examined. set:Research Information for Teachers, 2(7).

Briggs, F (1991). Child protection programmes: Can they protect young children? Early Child Development and Care, 67,61-72.

The study which gave qualified support to the South Australian Protective Behaviours programme is:

Johnson, B. (1995). Teaching and learning about personal safety: Report of the review of Protective Behaviours in South Australia. Adelaide, Painters Prints.

The quote of another investigation of Keeping Ourselves Safe is from page 85 of:

Perniske, L.M. (1995). Child protection programmes: What do children learn and remember? Keeping Ourselves Safe - An evaluation with follow up. Master of Arts in Psychology Thesis. Victoria University of Wellington.

That children who are taught personal safety skills in a co-operative effort by teachers and parents are much more likely to remember than children taught only by their teachers is reported in:

Wurtele, S.K., Kast, L.C. & Melter, A.M.. (1992). Sexual abuse prevention education for young children: A comparison of teachers and parents as instructors. Child Abuse and Neglect, 16(6), 877.v That children from low income families are more vulnerable to abuse than children in middle class families is reported by:

Finkelhor, D. (1964). Child sexual abuse: New Theory and research. New York: The Free Press.

The survey of South Australian parents which found that child abuse came from fourth on a list of 22 issues is:

Hunt, G., Hawkins, R. & Goodlet, T. (1992). Parenting: A survey of community needs. Children Australia, 17(3), 9-12.

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