Know

Think back to a time when you experienced a situation or challenge that was unfamiliar. Did anyone act to help ease your worry? What helped you or others make good decisions through the situation? How did you keep the main goal or mission in mind? How did you help yourself or others remain calm? Did you learn something from the situation that helped you prevent future challenges or to feel more prepared?

When a sexual behavior incident or challenge occurs in your program, depending on the severity of behavior and the knowledge of those involved, it can feel overwhelming–it might even feel like a crisis. How can you address the immediate needs of children, families, staff, and leadership in ways that are respectful and supportive of all involved? How can you help plan for longer-term support? When challenges arise, it is important to consider the systems and steps needed to address the short- and long-term needs of the safety and healthy development of all children and youth in your program. As a program leader, it is equally important that you have systems in place to prevent sexual behavior challenges. Previous lessons in this course provide a strong foundation; this lesson builds on that material, focusing on your role as aPUBLIC director and how you can provide critical leadership to prevent and appropriately respond to sexual behavior challenges.

Supporting Program Staff

Set the Tone in your Program: Respond to Diverse Beliefs on Sexual Development

As a program administrator, your level of comfort in discussing sexual development and behavior can have a significant effect on staff. For example, you will want to use correct anatomical terms and be able to calmly ask questions when incidents arise. Emphasize that sexual development and behavior is like other domains of child development, such as cognitive and physical, and professional caregivers can use many of the same principles and practices that support child development to foster healthy sexual development and prevent sexual behavior challenges. For example, when staff members and families help children learn to set boundaries for what feels physically safe to them (e.g., saying, “I don’t want to hug right now”) and respect the physical boundaries of others, they intentionally support healthy sexual development in addition to communication, language, and social-emotional skills.

It is important to note that due to a lack of information to learn about and, for some, cultural beliefs about the taboo nature of sexual development, program staff may need more extensive support to build skills relevant to discussing and properly supporting children’s healthy sexual development and behavior. The lack of opportunity to learn about this topic affects child care staff members’ beliefs and how they view their role in supporting healthy sexual development. Consider some of the following comments or concerns you may hear staff make, and then review the guidelines:

While these staff concerns may be common, it is important for staff to understand that their primary role includes keeping children safe and supporting learning and development, including sexual development. Review the guidance around acknowledging, relating and taking action in Lesson Eight for ways to respond to staff’s comments in ways that support their feelings but also reinforce expectations for their role in executing high-quality care. As an administrator, you must take action to ensure appropriate caregiving and education takes places within your program. Collaborate with your trainer or coach, and as needed, develop action plans with staff members to build their knowledge in understanding and responding to sexual behaviors.

Assess Program-Wide Needs and Promote Preventive Practices

As discussed in Lesson Eight, it is helpful to have a baseline read of your staff’s knowledge and comfort level regarding sexual development and behavior. You can partner with your trainer or coach to collect data to assess this by asking staff to complete the My Knowledge and Beliefs self-assessment tool in the Apply section of Lesson One. This is one way to measure the level of understanding around this topic for individual staff members and your program as a whole. If you find that most of your program staff report limited knowledge on sexual development and behavior or feel uncomfortable with this topic, collaborate with coaches, a specialist, or local community agencies to plan a professional development opportunity. Refer to Lesson Eight for more suggestions on supporting program-wide learning on sexual development and behavior. Ensuring that staff have proper training, as well as opportunities, tools, and resources to understand and discuss sexual behavior is critical for children’s safety and healthy development in your program.

Aside from formal professional development, one helpful way to support preventive efforts is to normalize communication about sexual behavior. There is a tendency for child care staff to discuss children’s sexual behavior with each other, but only with families when there is a concern. Even when sexual behavior is normative, staff may feel hesitant to ask questions or talk with their teaching team and families. Help program staff gain confidence by allowing them to practice speaking about this topic with you. Model how you talk about sexual behaviors and preventive strategies, and also ask staff to practice what they would say to a coworker or family.

When staff are not sure how to respond to children’s natural curiosities about their bodies, sex, or the life cycle, encourage them to answer children's questions in developmentally appropriate ways. Inform families when you had or will have such discussions (questions about reproduction, names of body parts, etc.) in your child care program. Offer families information about typical sexual development and help them prepare for questions that might come up. These strategies, along with others throughout this course, create a program community that is more knowledgeable about sexual development and behavior, and also better primed to prevent sexual behavior challenges.

Key Prevention Strategies

Many of the same practices we use to ensure safe and healthy environments for children also help prevent sexual behavior challenges. When staff members feel uncomfortable supporting children’s sexual development or report they have limited knowledge, you can begin supportive conversations about these familiar child development strategies and systems to highlight what staff already know. Think how each strategy helps prevent sexual behavior challenges in your program. How do you currently help ensure that these systems occur in your program? How might they be adapted or emphasized to prevent sexual behavior challenges? Reflect on these questions as you read about key prevention strategies for sexual development challenges:

Supervise & Support

Responding to Sexual Behavior

Your Specific Role as an Administrator

This course provides all program staff with important information and tools to understand and respond to children’s sexual behavior. Each instance of sexual behavior is different, and it is your role to have an overarching view of the entire situation as it pertains to the needs of children, families, and staff. Expanding on the guidelines from Lesson Two on responding in the moment and after the fact, be prepared to step in when you assess that there are additional needs to attend to. Use these suggestions to guide your comprehensive program support as you and your staff appropriately respond to sexual behavior:

Supporting Teams’ Use of Program Tools

After a sexual behavior incident occurs, work with staff and teams to use program tools to determine next steps. As a program administrator, it is your role to review these documents and ask follow-up questions. Follow-up questions allow you to guide staff members to determine if a sexual behavior is of concern or normative. Follow-up questions also keep you, as the administrator, knowledgeable about challenges with regard to specific children and teams. Finally, follow-up questions help you know when a team needs general support and coaching on sexual development and behavior. You may find instances where you disagree with how a team interprets children’s sexual behaviors. The questions in tools such as the Sexual Behavior Reflection Tool, help you guide teams’ use of a developmental and comprehensive frame to determine the severity of incidents and to assess if behaviors can easily be prevented with universal strategies.

Take a moment now to review the Sexual Behavior Reflection Tool and think of questions you might pose to program staff to deepen your understanding of an incident and also staff’s ability to think about sexual behavior comprehensively.

 

Sexual Behavior Reflection Tool

Is the behavior random or infrequent?

Is the behavior typical for the child’s age and developmental ability?

Is the behavior driven by curiosity, exploration, and playfulness?

If other children are involved, is it mutual and good-humored?

If other children are involved, do they know each other well and are they of a similar age and development (<2 years)?

Is the behavior easily redirected?

Normative Sexual Behavior?

Sexual Development Factors: Case-by-Case Decision Making

As discussed throughout this course, several factors affect children and youth’s sexual development and behavior. In each unique case or incident, knowledge of these factors is necessary to understand whether or not a child exhibits a sexual behavior challenge and, if so, the severity of that challenge. One must consider:

• Culture and family norms
• Development
• Function of the behavior
• Frequency and participation
• Environment
• Media
• Effect on others
• Redirection

Though you will consider all of these factors, direct care staff may need the most help from leadership when analyzing children’s development and function for sexual behaviors. You, with trainers or coaches in your program, will likely need to be part of the process when staff complete the Sexual Behaviors Reflection Tool, Sexual Development Definition and Factors, and other tools. Even when a more seasoned teaching team completes these forms without you, always review this documentation.

As discussed in Lesson Eight, understanding how development affects children’s behavior is complex, particularly when staff identify strongly as a caregiver for a specific age group or care for children with disabilities or delays. In addition, most families have a more limited knowledge of child development, and some may look to you, as the leader of the program, for guidance on how to understand children’s behavior in relation to their developmental abilities. When staff or family members encounter or ask questions about sexual behavior, help them think about children’s individual development by asking them the following questions:

• What behavior occurred?
• What do we want to happen?
• What can the child do?

Also covered in Lesson Eight, remember that all behavior has meaning or serves some function. Determining the function of children’s sexual behavior requires careful thought about children’s cognitive, language, social-emotional, and physical abilities. When discussing incidents of sexual behavior with staff members or families, model careful reflection and recognize that functions may not always be clear. Although some children can tell you the reason they engaged in a behavior, many children, especially children preschool-age and younger, will not understand why they engage in sexual behaviors or unsafe touch. In these instances, you will need to help staff members think carefully about children’s environments and development to determine whether the behavior is a reaction to some feature in the classroom or program environment or a more thought-out occurrence. Even when sexual behavior seems carefully crafted (e.g., a school-age child yells out a sexual obscenity to get a laugh from peers), think deeply about why children engage in these behaviors and what they “get” out of doing so (e.g., attention from peers and adults). Learn more about the functions of behavior in the VLS Focused Topics course Supporting Children with Challenging Behaviors.

Immediate Response and Creating Short-Term Support and Prevention Plans

WhilePUBLIC a specialist will lead teams in intervention plans for sexual behavior challenges, you will coordinate the immediate response within your program, and there are a few instances in which you will lead the creation of a prevention or short-term support plan. After careful reflection and use of program tools, you will find that many of the sexual behaviors observed in your program are normative and developmentally appropriate. This does not mean that staff do not need to provide support to these children or should allow these behaviors to continue to occur. For some normative sexual behavior, you will want to help staff create a simple prevention plan and schedule to reassess the behavior after a period of time. Staff can often prevent or redirect inappropriate but normative behaviors, for example by providing closer active supervision where the behavior tends to occur (e.g., in gyms, lunchrooms, and bathrooms) and by reminding children and youth about public versus private behaviors. Lesson Four provides detailed information on strategies to promote healthy sexual development and prevent sexual behavior challenges. Learn additional prevention strategies in the VLS Focused Topics course Supporting Children with Challenging Behaviors. Any time a sexual behavior is displayed, even normative, it is important that staff let program leadership, such as a trainer, coach, or administrator, know so that they can also take appropriate follow-up action (e.g., help provide information to families and create prevention plans). If there are still concerns after implementing a prevention plan, consult with PUBLIC a specialist. For more clear-cut sexual behavior challenges, you or a coach will contactPUBLIC a specialist immediately.

For children who have either clearly exhibited a sexual behavior challenge, or a sexual behavior you need further guidance on, develop a short-term support plan while you wait forPUBLIC a specialist to provide more extensive recommendations. As an administrator, it is important that you prepare a plan with program staff for any gap between when the initial incident occurred and whenPUBLIC a specialist can provide consultation or evaluate the child. Depending on the specialist, this may be hours, days, or even weeks. Regardless of the amount of lag time between referral and evaluation, your program should commit to continued care for all children involved unless there is a high risk of serious and unpreventable harm to others. These instances are rare for children ages birth to 12. When creating short-term support plans, consider the following:

Supportive Shadowing

 A staff member may shadow, or stay near, a child who has exhibited behavior challenges and needs more support. This is a helpful way to ensure safety for everyone in the program and allows the adult to quickly intervene and model healthy skills. During shadowing, a staff member may sometimes directly play or interact with the focal child, but the key is that they are nearby, observing, recording relevant notes when appropriate, and are prepared to jump in should the child begin to display challenging behavior. Well-implemented shadowing is not obvious to the rest of the children or outsiders, and some children consider the extra attention a special privilege. As an administrator, it is important that you clearly communicate what it means to shadow a child and be explicit that shadowing should not be punitive or make the child feel excluded.

• In teaching teams, you may need to help support a time schedule for shadowing. For example, in a classroom maintained by three staff members, the classroom team may agree to take turns shadowing a child in need of extra supervision support. Darlene agrees to stay near the child throughout the morning until the class transitions outside, at which point Jovan takes the lead through nap time, followed by Maurice through the end of the day. Notice that the team has explicitly identified who will shadow at what times–this is a critical step in helping to provide extra supervision for children exhibiting sexual behavior challenges.
• For school-age programs, you may need to work with staff to identify a member that can adequately shadow a child through transitions or spaces within the program–for example, moving from the art studio to the playground. Help staff prepare to shadow in ways that are supportive of the child and their relationships with peers. For example, when a child wants to transition from the art studio to the playground, how could a staff member talk and transition with them in a way that communicates the child has strengths and is valued in the program or perhaps engage peers in the transition as well?
• Shadowing and support needs for children with sexual behavior challenges will vary, therefore it is important to consider overall staffing plans. Some children with sexual behaviors may need an added staff member in their classroom. In other instances, existing staff will be able to carry out recommended strategies and supervision effectively.  

As school-age children typically have more autonomy in the program space, it is important to discuss and plan how program transitions and bathroom visits will work when. In programs where children need to change clothing or receive overnight care, it will be important to explicitly plan how supervision and support will occur during these times, when sexual behavior challenges can present more of a risk to others.

It is also crucial that when a substitute is in a classroom or program space where special supervision plans are in place, you check in with the team to ensure each member knows their roles and responsibilities to ensure continued implementation of the plan. Enlist team members and create a support system so this is feasible. Only informed adults, with appropriate training from you, the trainer, or coach, should have the responsibility of shadowing children or carrying out short-term support and preventive plans. 

Administrators and staff should be cautious before permanently removing children who have exhibited sexual behavior challenges from their program environment or classroom. Decisions should be made on a case-by-case basis and, except in cases of the most severe or harmful behaviors, children with sexual behavior challenges should remain in their classrooms. Removing children can unnecessarily exclude children from learning opportunities as well as needlessly label and stigmatize them. When making a decision to remove a child from their environment, sharing information with program staff, schools, or other similar settings should be based on the individual child’s sexual behavior challenges in those settings and the child’s privacy rights. Consult your state laws for further guidance.

Support for Program Families

Supporting Families with Children Who Exhibit Sexual Behavior Challenges

When a sexual behavior challenge occurs, you as the administrator will likely lead the process of sharing what occurred with the appropriate family members and referring families to community resources for support, if appropriate. Familiarize yourself with local supports available to families. It is critically important that you individually address the families of all children involved and that you share concrete information about what occurred as quickly as you can. Through your leadership, model and explicitly discuss how you balance transparency and confidentiality--being open and honest with staff members or family members who need to know about their children’s sexual behavior in the program while respecting the privacy of individual children and families. Delays in transparency can increase family members’ negative reactions or cause them to question why they were not involved sooner.

As previewed in Lesson Six and underscored in Lesson Eight, families of children with sexual behavior challenges may have additional life stressors as a result of their children’s needs. The importance of early caregiver engagement, particularly when children or youth have sexual behavior challenges, cannot be overstated. Administrators can support families of children who exhibit and experience sexual behavior challenges by helping provide evidence-based information and modeling healthy responses to the behaviors. You can also support family members by reviewing assessments and intervention plans, helping to provide referrals for counseling if the behavior persists, and reporting to child protective services or law enforcement agencies (in accordance with state laws) if abuse is suspected.

If you have serious concerns about a child’s sexual behavior, you must follow your program’s procedures. For all other issues in connection with children’s sexual development, it is best to involve families in line with your organization policy. Consider the following when interacting with families about sexual development and behaviors:

• Make contact as early as possible.
• Provide information about professional roles and assessment processes.
• Affirm importance of the parental role.
• Emphasize that by sharing your concern you are putting the child’s needs first.
• Help to process emotional responses.
• Listen to the parents’ story.
• Be aware that each parent may react differently.
• Expect ambivalence, hostility, or distress--try to not take the family’s initial reactions personally.
• Avoid confrontation.

When family members have not seen their child behave in this way, it can be hard to believe it really happened. Family members sometimes feel embarrassed or upset. Reassurance and guidance about normative sexual behaviors can help with questions and concerns that many parents have. It is also normal for families to want to defend their child against accusations. Common reactions from families when discussing their child’s sexual behavior challenges include:

Family Reactions

Read the scenarios below. Consider the suggested way you might approach and respond to families, and review the specific strategies offered in Lesson Eight for ways program leadership can offer added support to these families. Keep in mind that families may display a range of responses to the information that you share about their child’s sexual behavior. However, once families have had a chance to process the incident, their responses may change.

Responding to Sexual Behavior Challenges–Case Example

Outlined in the Know section above, there are a series of key steps that program administrators can take when a sexual behavior occurs to help ensure the safety of all children and families. Read the following case study and reflect on how the leadership team and staff incorporated the various strategies and principles outlined in this course.

Notice that throughout this case example, the administrator plays a central role in leading communication, engaging staff in reflection and planning, and coordinating with the appropriate staff, leadership, and outside agencies. Use the case study example in the Explore section to brainstorm what you would do in response to a sexual behavior incident.