Helping our community to stay safe and prevent child abuse before it happens
Interactive Training for Children, Educators, and Caregivers
Our child abuse prevention programs grew out of SungateKids’ experience as a child advocacy center, where we have spent many years talking to and working with thousands of children whose lives have been affected by child abuse. In 2014, we created our comprehensive child abuse training programs by taking what we learned in our interview rooms and counseling sessions and developed accessible, innovate curricula to encourage children and adults to talk about child abuse and safety. We believe this is the most effective way to bring light to the subject and prevent child abuse before it happens.
Our Programs
Empowering Children and Adults to Talk About Child Abuse
Our SungateKids SafeKids prevention program is presented by highly trained prevention specialists who encourage children, educators, and caregivers to feel more comfortable talking about child abuse.
A pivotal part of our SungateKids SafeKids program involves a comprehensive 45-minute, interactive assembly program for 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. During this program, students meet our SungateKids SafeKids life-sized puppet “kids” who use a child-friendly, interactive, peer-to-peer format to discuss their experiences with physical and sexual abuse and teach them ways to stay safe. The assembly deals with both child physical and sexual abuse, and teaches students many important lessons such as:
- Abuse is never a child’s fault
- The importance of telling a trusted adult when you feel unsafe or things just “don’t feel right”
- If the first adult you tell about your experience doesn’t believe you or provide help, you need to keep speaking up and talking to different adults until someone does.
Additionally, SungateKids SafeKids provides both educators and caregivers an opportunity to learn about this topic while giving them specific tools to help keep children safe from abuse. The program is presented at no cost to schools or participants and puts not extra burden on classroom teachers.
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SungateKids SafeTalks is a unique and innovative program designed to help parents and caregivers discuss the issue of safety and child abuse with the preschool-aged children in their lives. Based upon SungateKids’ 25 years of experience as a child advocacy center and working in the field of child abuse, this program also embraces the philosophy that the best weapon in the fight against child abuse is to talk about it.
This program teaches adults how to broach the subject of sexual abuse with younger children by learning how to be more comfortable discussing the topic while using age-appropriate language.
Prevention Program Testimonials: What Makes SungateKids Prevention Programs Special
“SungateKids has pioneered a concept in prevention and education of child abuse in Colorado. Their engaging and collaborative efforts to keep children safe in our community, have proven to be an effective manner in teaching our young children and helping them tell their story when they are unsafe. The SK2 program has changed the face of how we prevent, identify, and report child abuse. Through a more engaging and interactive process, SungateKids not only educates children and their parents about prevention, but also helps young victims tell their story when they are unsafe.” – Michelle Dossey, Child & Adult Protection Services Intake Administrator, Arapahoe County Dept. of Human Services
“As a parent, it’s really hard to know how to start the conversation with your child about abuse prevention – it seems scary and overwhelming. After my son saw the SK2 program at school, it gave me the perfect opportunity to talk about the issue with him. Seeing the assembly at school somehow made it “ok” to talk about. I was amazed by how much he learned and relieved by the comfort level he had with the topic. All schools should be arming their students with this important information and the SK2 program delivers it in a creative, non-threatening way that’s fun for kids!” – 3rd grade parent, Hopkins Elementary School
“I saw a puppet show at school and I noticed something that happened to this one little girl (puppet) was the same thing that was happening to me… and it was abuse and it wasn’t ok. So I told.” – 4th grade student, Field Elementary School
Get Your School/Organization Talking About Prevention
Contact us today to learn more about how you can prevent child abuse by having the SungateKids SafeKids program come to your school or the SungateKids SafeTalks program work with your group.
