Rebecca Martin, one of our Authorized Facilitators, knows the value of child protection and how critical it is to make a difference before a crisis can ever happen. At the Carousel Child Advocacy Center in Wilmington, NC, Rebecca used her role as the Child Abuse Prevention Supervisor to train her community in Stewards of Children®. The more she trained however, the more obstacles she encountered. The challenges of engaging parents, resistance from schools, limited funding for victim services, and the ongoing need for sustainable solutions were real.
When she discovered our Partner in Prevention (PIP) program, she knew she found a solution. A Partner in Prevention is an organization commited to being prevention-oriented by taking proactive steps with their staff, beginning with ensuring that at least 90% of their staff are trained in Stewards of Children®.
“The Partner in Prevention program addresses [our] challenges by partnering with organizations and businesses to embed child sexual abuse prevention education into their corporate social responsibility efforts, ensuring employees in all roles gain the knowledge needed to protect children. By training employees, we are not just educating professionals but equipping parents, caregivers, family members, coaches, mentors, neighbors, advocates, jurors, voters, and survivors, each with a unique circle of influence to create ripple effects in their communities.“
With this in mind, Rebecca began reaching out to businesses, schools, and local government (such as law enforcement and Fire and Rescue teams), encouraging them to participate. The results of Rebecca’s efforts have been transformative.
Since first becoming a Partner In Prevention in 2022, Rebecca and the team at the Carousel Center have helped over 75 other organizations also achieve this status, including the entire New Hanover County Schools school district. They have trained over 6,300 adults.
This has also led to a collaboration with the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, where a longitudinal research study is tracking the impact of their training program. This data will help refine their approach and show the measurable effects of prevention. With a goal to train 35,000 adults by 2028, Rebecca’s vision is clear: to make child sexual abuse prevention as universally recognized and ingrained as CPR training.
Today, Rebecca also works with kNot Today as the State Director of North Carolina to support child sexual abuse prevention efforts across the state.
“Partners in Prevention are CATALYSTS. This partnership program was crucial to our success in training so many adults across diverse sectors on topic that often struggles to gain attention.
Preventing CSA requires collective engagement and culture shifts, making it essential to educate adults from all walks of life. This responsibility must be shared and widespread, moving beyond privileged information to become deeply embedded in our culture. I think it’s safe to say the vast majority of adults we’ve trained would not have chosen to take this training on their own. However, it’s incredibly rewarding to receive overwhelmingly positive feedback from individuals who express genuine gratitude for the opportunity once the “lightbulb moments” occur. So often, we simply don’t know what we don’t know.
PIP’s ensure adults gain the critical knowledge they didn’t realize they needed, equipping them to be the advocate every child deserves."
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