Silent Injuries Health Forum

Anonymous data collected from Child Sexual Abuse professionals indicates a forum to discuss health challenges may be helpful to reduce vulnerability to toxin exposure. 

This monthly exchange page is designed to continuously collect information about our professions and report the observations monthly.

My Story Outline

Purpose:

The purpose is to collect brief and personal vignettes describing SANE exposure to case fact situations that are higher risk to cause sexual, cognitive, communication, or parenting injuries (Professional Critical Incident).  Selected personal stories will be used in future pre-case assignment trainings to illustrate Silent Injuries among SANE.

If you would like to contribute to this training component, your vignette needs to include three specific elements.  The first element identifies a professional critical incident. Our current data indicates professional critical incidents include:

  1. CSA case assignment without CSA training;
  2. Case fact situations that stimulate personal child sexual abuse memories;
  3. Declining case involvement because the offender and/or victim are within your broadly defined social circle;
  4. Exposure to diverse pornography (e.g., normative and deviant) belonging to a child sexual abuser;
  5. Experiencing sexual stimulation while performing CSA professional responsibilities; and
  6. Judging self as responsible for a case outcome that you considered undesirable.

 

The second element to My Story needs to describe the way you interpreted the critical incident.  Below are beginnings to descriptive statements related to the professional critical incidents.  After completing the sentence, please describe your thoughts and emotions. 

  1. I interpret CSA case assignment without specific training to mean:
  2. I believe case facts stimulating my own abuse memories means:
  3. A case involving an offender and/or victim that I know socially causes me to think:
  4. Viewing normative and deviant pornography that belongs to a child sexual abuser causes me to think:
  5. Experiencing sexual stimulation while performing my CSA professional responsibilities causes me to think:
  6. I interpret an offender evading criminal justice sanctions to mean my professional skills are:

 

The third and final element to my story describes the strategy you used to treat the professional critical incident
 

Thank you for contributing to this curriculum development.

 

 

 

Silent Injuries Cops Nurses

Let's Talk About It

Survey Number One was posted on April 15th, 2007.  Web site visitors were asked to rank the ten discussion topics listed below on a scale ranging from one (most important topic) to ten (least important topic).

Who Completed the Survey?

Forty-nine website visitors completed the survey.  Most respondents were female (69.4%). The respondents' diverse professions include law enforcement (6), prosecuting attorneys (7), victim counselors (5), offender counselors (6), victim and offender counselors (4), child advocate (2), SANE (15), and support personnel (4). 

Six percent of the respondents have not responded to a child sexual abuse case, 8.2% have one to eighteen months experience, 16.3% have 19 to 36 months experience, 28.6% have 37 months to eight years experience, 22.4% have 8.1 years to 13 years experience, and 18.4% have 13.1 years or more experience.  Chi Square analysis indicates the relationship between gender and the number years of professional experience is insignificant. 

The respondents report varied living situations. Sixty-five percent were married, 12.2% were unmarried and sharing residence, 8.2% were single, 8.2% were separated, and 6.1% were divorced. Chi Square analysis indicates the relationship between gender and living situation is insignificant.

Fifty-one percent of the respondents received specific CSA training prior to their first case assignment. This observation is consistent with the CSA professionals who established the Silentinjuries Questionnaire (N = 763) standardization sample. 

What Topics did They Rank as most Important?   

Discussion Topic

Average Ranking
(1 = most important;
10 = least important)

What Sexual Response Cycle Injuries are common to CSA professionals?

4.10

What Communication Injuries are common to CSA professionals?

4.22

What Cognitive Injuries are common to CSA professionals?

4.30

What are personal strategies to Manage Toxin Exposure?

4.55

What is a Universal Toxin?

5.04

What are the characteristics to a healthy agency practice?

5.3

Is Burnout Inevitable?

5.42

Is there a relationship between toxin exposure and divorce risk?

6.22***

What is the relationship between entering the CSA field as a child sexual abuse survivor and vulnerability to Silent Injuries?

7.1

What makes entering the CSA profession under age twenty-five and married a critical incident?

7.34

Note: N = 49; *** p < .001

Thematically, the respondents rated informational topics describing potential injuries (e.g., sexual response, communication, and cognitive) to CSA professionals as most important. Next, the respondents favor learning about the toxin and toxin management.  The third topical theme, professional and personal relationship challenges was rated lowest. No relationship was observed between pre-case assignment training and topical ratings. The number years experience group sizes were too small and unbalanced to enable comparison. Male and female professionals rated the topical areas similarly with only one exception. 

A oneway ANOVA revealed male respondents assigned significantly greater emphasis than female respondents to learning the relationship between toxin exposure and divorce risk (F(1, N = 49) = 14.91, p < 0.001).  The mean ranking among male respondents for this discussion topic was 4.13 compared to 7.14 among female respondents.

August 15, 2007:
Three Prongs to Sexual Injuries Among CSA Professionals

Question #1       

I am employed as:

 

Question #2  

I have responded to CSA cases for:

 

Question #3    

My gender is:

Male Female

 

Question #4           

My intimate partner living situation is:

 

Question #5           

I received Child Sexual Abuse specific training before my first case assignment.

True False

 

Question #6           

I believe sexual injuries are reported by:

Question #7           

I believe the most commonly reported sexual injury to CSA professionals is:

Question #8           

Which of the following is unrelated to sexual injuries vulnerability among child sexual abuse professionals:

 

 

 

 
 
 

Phone (623) 680 6624 s Email robertemerick@silentinjuries.com