- Gender inequality affects all women, but there is a gradient of gendered disadvantage with poor, black and minority ethnic women at the bottom.
- Prevalence research shows that girls are at greater risk of most kinds of abuse, including severe maltreatment and child sexual abuse.
- In Britain 1 in 4 women experience physical violence perpetrated by a partner at some time in their lives
- There is an accumulation of risk over the life course and the poorest outcomes are for those who experience abuse and violence as both children and as adults.
- Many of the negative outcomes of violence and abuse increase the risk of further victimisation; women who become homeless, misuse drugs and/or are involved in criminality are highly likely to experience further violence.
- Responses to adversity, including abuse, tend to be differentiated by gender, with boys more likely to externalise problems (and act out anger and distress through anti-social behaviour) and girls to internalise their responses in the form of depression and self-harming behaviours.
- For women, there is co-existence of different negative life experiences and that women with multiple problems frequently experience difficulty in accessing support.
- The evidence from service evaluations and research with women at risk supports a model of integrated, holistic, one-stop, women-centred services as being valued and engaging for those who use them although the evidence for achieving specific outcomes is under developed.
Monday, 1 September 2014
What are the underlying causes of risk and disadvantage for women and girls?
Barrow Cadbury Trust, LankellyChase Foundation and the Pilgrim Trust commissioned a wide ranging review to look at the underlying causes of risk and disadvantage for women and girls. The review looked across the life course of women and girls who experience poor outcomes (offending, homelessness, prostitution and exploitation, chronic mental health and substance abuse) and whilst highlighting significant gaps in the evidence in this area, drew out key messages:
Thursday, 6 March 2014
Teenagers peer pressured to 'sext'
Are adolescents today "sexting" for popularity?
Mobile phones are fully integrated into the social lives of today's teenagers, and offer a sense of autonomy for those looking to hide from adult supervision. Concerns have risen over the use of the mobile phone as an instrument to download, produce, and distribute sexual imagery and a growing number of studies on adolescent mobile communication report that the consumption and distribution of pornographic imagery via mobile phones is common in adolescent peer groups.
Though very few studies have asked "why" adolescents choose to participate in sexting or the use of mobile porn, those that have asked "why" continually point to the influence of peer group dynamics. In a new study featured in the "Sex and the Media" issue of Routledge's Media Psychology, authors Mariek Vanden Abeele, Ph.D., Scott W Campbell, PhD., Steven Eggermont, PhD., and Keith Roe, PhD shed light on the connection between teen's sexting and mobile porn use, and their social status in the article "Sexting, Mobile Porn Use and Peer Group Dynamics: Boys' and Girls' Self-Perceived Popularity, Need for Popularity, and Perceived Peer Pressure."
"We were intrigued by the fact that most teens appear aware of the potential risks of sexting, but nevertheless still commit to producing and distributing nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves to their peers," says Dr. Mariek Vanden Abeele, discussing her and her co-authors interest in studying this topic. "We felt that a possible explanation for the fact that teenagers engage in sexting practices despite the obvious risks, could lie in the role of powerful peer group dynamics such as peer pressure and popularity. We also noticed that teenagers' mobile porn use received little attention from both scholars and public opinion leaders, while current research suggests that this behaviour is fairly prevalent among teens."
Interview studies with adolescents show that there is pressure to participate in sexting and mobile porn use in order to achieve peer acceptance, providing evidence that both behaviours are 'used' to display or gain status in a social circle. (Bond, 2010; Lenhart, 2009; Lippman & Campbell, 2012; Ringrose et al., 2012). Drawing from the results of a large scale quantitative survey study, this study examined how four key aspects of peer group dynamics, namely same-sex popularity, other-sex popularity, perceived peer pressure and need for popularity, are associated with sexting and mobile porn use among teenagers ages 11-20.
"A first interesting result in the study, is that for boys sexting was associated with higher (self-perceived) popularity among both boys and girls, while girls who reported having sent a sext indicated perceiving themselves as more popular among boys, but less popular among girls," explains Dr. Vanden Abeele. "A second interesting result from our study is that mobile porn use was reported almost exclusively by male respondents, particularly by boys who experienced greater peer pressure. This finding aligns with what we know from earlier work on the consumption of magazine and video pornography in male peer groups, and suggests that downloading and exchanging mobile porn may be at least as much about proving one's 'manliness' to others as it is about achieving sexual arousal."
Dr. Vanden Abeele says the results of this study suggest that, in the eyes of teenagers, sexting and mobile porn use do bring short-term benefits in terms of enhancing popularity in the peer group that may in fact outweigh potential long-term risks associated with these behaviours.
Article sourced from Science Daily
Mobile phones are fully integrated into the social lives of today's teenagers, and offer a sense of autonomy for those looking to hide from adult supervision. Concerns have risen over the use of the mobile phone as an instrument to download, produce, and distribute sexual imagery and a growing number of studies on adolescent mobile communication report that the consumption and distribution of pornographic imagery via mobile phones is common in adolescent peer groups.
Though very few studies have asked "why" adolescents choose to participate in sexting or the use of mobile porn, those that have asked "why" continually point to the influence of peer group dynamics. In a new study featured in the "Sex and the Media" issue of Routledge's Media Psychology, authors Mariek Vanden Abeele, Ph.D., Scott W Campbell, PhD., Steven Eggermont, PhD., and Keith Roe, PhD shed light on the connection between teen's sexting and mobile porn use, and their social status in the article "Sexting, Mobile Porn Use and Peer Group Dynamics: Boys' and Girls' Self-Perceived Popularity, Need for Popularity, and Perceived Peer Pressure."
"We were intrigued by the fact that most teens appear aware of the potential risks of sexting, but nevertheless still commit to producing and distributing nude or semi-nude pictures of themselves to their peers," says Dr. Mariek Vanden Abeele, discussing her and her co-authors interest in studying this topic. "We felt that a possible explanation for the fact that teenagers engage in sexting practices despite the obvious risks, could lie in the role of powerful peer group dynamics such as peer pressure and popularity. We also noticed that teenagers' mobile porn use received little attention from both scholars and public opinion leaders, while current research suggests that this behaviour is fairly prevalent among teens."
Interview studies with adolescents show that there is pressure to participate in sexting and mobile porn use in order to achieve peer acceptance, providing evidence that both behaviours are 'used' to display or gain status in a social circle. (Bond, 2010; Lenhart, 2009; Lippman & Campbell, 2012; Ringrose et al., 2012). Drawing from the results of a large scale quantitative survey study, this study examined how four key aspects of peer group dynamics, namely same-sex popularity, other-sex popularity, perceived peer pressure and need for popularity, are associated with sexting and mobile porn use among teenagers ages 11-20.
"A first interesting result in the study, is that for boys sexting was associated with higher (self-perceived) popularity among both boys and girls, while girls who reported having sent a sext indicated perceiving themselves as more popular among boys, but less popular among girls," explains Dr. Vanden Abeele. "A second interesting result from our study is that mobile porn use was reported almost exclusively by male respondents, particularly by boys who experienced greater peer pressure. This finding aligns with what we know from earlier work on the consumption of magazine and video pornography in male peer groups, and suggests that downloading and exchanging mobile porn may be at least as much about proving one's 'manliness' to others as it is about achieving sexual arousal."
Dr. Vanden Abeele says the results of this study suggest that, in the eyes of teenagers, sexting and mobile porn use do bring short-term benefits in terms of enhancing popularity in the peer group that may in fact outweigh potential long-term risks associated with these behaviours.
Article sourced from Science Daily
Thursday, 23 January 2014
Health and 'Hookups' Correlated in First-Year College Women
Sexual experimentation outside of committed romantic relationships, or "hooking up," is portrayed as unhealthy, especially for young women.
Researchers from Syracuse and Brown Universities set out to examine the relationship between young women's health and hooking up more closely; their findings, in "Sexual Hook-ups and Adverse Health Outcomes: A Longitudinal Study of First-Year College Women," are now available in The Journal of Sex Research, the official publication of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality and a publication from Routledge.
The study examined the associations between sexual hook-up behaviour and depression, sexual victimization, and sexually transmitted infections. 483 first-year female undergraduate students completed 13 monthly surveys assessing hook-up versus romantic sexual behaviours in relation to depression, sexual victimization, as well as self-reported and biologically-confirmed STIs.
Researchers found that early college hook-up behaviour was associated with sexual victimization and depression, but did not predict future depression. Hook-up sex and romantic sex were both associated with STIs, and pre-college hook-up behaviour predicted early college experiences of sexual victimization. Overall, the potential negative outcomes associated with hooking up in female college students suggest a need for proactive educational efforts and further research into the nature of these associations.
Sourced from Science Daily
Researchers from Syracuse and Brown Universities set out to examine the relationship between young women's health and hooking up more closely; their findings, in "Sexual Hook-ups and Adverse Health Outcomes: A Longitudinal Study of First-Year College Women," are now available in The Journal of Sex Research, the official publication of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality and a publication from Routledge.
The study examined the associations between sexual hook-up behaviour and depression, sexual victimization, and sexually transmitted infections. 483 first-year female undergraduate students completed 13 monthly surveys assessing hook-up versus romantic sexual behaviours in relation to depression, sexual victimization, as well as self-reported and biologically-confirmed STIs.
Researchers found that early college hook-up behaviour was associated with sexual victimization and depression, but did not predict future depression. Hook-up sex and romantic sex were both associated with STIs, and pre-college hook-up behaviour predicted early college experiences of sexual victimization. Overall, the potential negative outcomes associated with hooking up in female college students suggest a need for proactive educational efforts and further research into the nature of these associations.
Sourced from Science Daily
Tuesday, 3 December 2013
Do as I Say, Not as I Did: How Parents Talk With Early Adolescents About Sex
Communication between parents and teens about sexuality can reduce early sexual behaviour reports Family Issues.
However, little research investigates how parents who were adolescents when they had children (early parents) talk with their teens about sex. In-depth interviews were conducted with a racially/ethnically diverse sample of 29 parents of seventh graders. Salient themes of conversations with adolescents were risks of early parenthood, sexually transmitted infections, delaying sex, and using protection. Compared with parents who were older when they had children (later parents), early parents were more likely to report having had negative sexuality communications with their families of origin and to express a wish to communicate differently with their own children.
Early parents were more likely than later parents to discuss risks of early parenthood and to rely on extended family involvement in sexuality communication. Findings suggest that early parents may bring unique perspectives that enable them to approach sexuality communication differently than do later parents.
A new study suggests that poor mental health and casual sex feed off each other in teens and young adults, with each one contributing to the other over time. Researchers found that teens who showed depressive symptoms were more likely than others to engage in casual sex as young adults. In addition, those who engaged in casual sex were more likely to later seriously consider suicide.
“Several studies have found a link between poor mental health and casual sex, but the nature of that association has been unclear,” said Sara Sandberg-Thoma, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in human sciences at The Ohio State University. “There’s always been a question about which one is the cause and which is the effect. This study provides evidence that poor mental health can lead to casual sex, but also that casual sex leads to additional declines in mental health.”
Sandberg-Thoma conducted the study with Claire Kamp Dush, assistant professor of human sciences at Ohio State. The research was published online recently in the Journal of Sex Research and will appear in a future print edition. One surprising finding was that the link between casual sex and mental health was the same for both men and women. “That was unexpected because there is still this sexual double standard in society that says it is OK for men to have casual sexual relationships, but it is not OK for women,” Kamp Dush said. “But these results suggest that poor mental health and casual sex are linked, whether you’re a man or a woman.”
The study used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Adolescents from 80 high schools and 52 middle schools were interviewed when they were in grades 7 through 12 and then again when they were aged 18 to 26. In all, this study involved about 10,000 people who were surveyed about their romantic relationship experiences across time, as well as depressive symptoms and thoughts of suicide.
Overall, 29 percent of the respondents reported engaging in any casual sexual relationship. These were defined as any relationship in which the participant reported he or she was “only having sex with partner” as opposed to dating. This included 33 percent of men and 24 percent of women. The results showed that participants who reported serious thoughts of suicide or more depressive symptoms as teens were significantly more likely to report having casual sexual relationships when they were young adults.
Casual sex, in turn, was linked to further declines in mental health. Specifically, those who had casual sex in their late teens and early 20s were significantly more likely to have serious thoughts of suicide as young adults, results showed. In fact, each additional casual sex relationship increased the odds of suicidal thoughts by 18 percent. However, casual sex in late teens and early 20s was not associated with changes in depression as a young adult.
The researchers are not sure why casual sex was linked to later serious consideration of suicide, but not depressive symptoms, in these participants. It may be that depressive symptoms fluctuate during adolescence and it is hard to capture an accurate reading when measured just twice, as in this study, Kamp Dush said. But the findings suggest that both researchers and health professionals need to consider more than one measure of mental health.
“Just because a person does not indicate depressive symptoms in one survey is not always proof that he or she is doing OK,” Kamp Dush said. “We need to look at multiple indicators of mental health, including suicidal thoughts.”
The results do point to a possible “cyclical pattern” in which poor mental health leads to casual sex, which leads to further declines in mental health, Sandberg-Thoma said. “The goal should be to identify adolescents struggling with poor mental health so that we can intervene early before they engage in casual sexual relationships,” she said. Kamp Dush said casual sexual relationships may hurt the ability of young adults to develop committed relationships at an important time in their development. “Young adulthood is a time when people begin to learn how to develop long-term, satisfying and intimate relationships,” she said.
However, little research investigates how parents who were adolescents when they had children (early parents) talk with their teens about sex. In-depth interviews were conducted with a racially/ethnically diverse sample of 29 parents of seventh graders. Salient themes of conversations with adolescents were risks of early parenthood, sexually transmitted infections, delaying sex, and using protection. Compared with parents who were older when they had children (later parents), early parents were more likely to report having had negative sexuality communications with their families of origin and to express a wish to communicate differently with their own children.
Early parents were more likely than later parents to discuss risks of early parenthood and to rely on extended family involvement in sexuality communication. Findings suggest that early parents may bring unique perspectives that enable them to approach sexuality communication differently than do later parents.
A new study suggests that poor mental health and casual sex feed off each other in teens and young adults, with each one contributing to the other over time. Researchers found that teens who showed depressive symptoms were more likely than others to engage in casual sex as young adults. In addition, those who engaged in casual sex were more likely to later seriously consider suicide.
“Several studies have found a link between poor mental health and casual sex, but the nature of that association has been unclear,” said Sara Sandberg-Thoma, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in human sciences at The Ohio State University. “There’s always been a question about which one is the cause and which is the effect. This study provides evidence that poor mental health can lead to casual sex, but also that casual sex leads to additional declines in mental health.”
Sandberg-Thoma conducted the study with Claire Kamp Dush, assistant professor of human sciences at Ohio State. The research was published online recently in the Journal of Sex Research and will appear in a future print edition. One surprising finding was that the link between casual sex and mental health was the same for both men and women. “That was unexpected because there is still this sexual double standard in society that says it is OK for men to have casual sexual relationships, but it is not OK for women,” Kamp Dush said. “But these results suggest that poor mental health and casual sex are linked, whether you’re a man or a woman.”
The study used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Adolescents from 80 high schools and 52 middle schools were interviewed when they were in grades 7 through 12 and then again when they were aged 18 to 26. In all, this study involved about 10,000 people who were surveyed about their romantic relationship experiences across time, as well as depressive symptoms and thoughts of suicide.
Overall, 29 percent of the respondents reported engaging in any casual sexual relationship. These were defined as any relationship in which the participant reported he or she was “only having sex with partner” as opposed to dating. This included 33 percent of men and 24 percent of women. The results showed that participants who reported serious thoughts of suicide or more depressive symptoms as teens were significantly more likely to report having casual sexual relationships when they were young adults.
Casual sex, in turn, was linked to further declines in mental health. Specifically, those who had casual sex in their late teens and early 20s were significantly more likely to have serious thoughts of suicide as young adults, results showed. In fact, each additional casual sex relationship increased the odds of suicidal thoughts by 18 percent. However, casual sex in late teens and early 20s was not associated with changes in depression as a young adult.
The researchers are not sure why casual sex was linked to later serious consideration of suicide, but not depressive symptoms, in these participants. It may be that depressive symptoms fluctuate during adolescence and it is hard to capture an accurate reading when measured just twice, as in this study, Kamp Dush said. But the findings suggest that both researchers and health professionals need to consider more than one measure of mental health.
“Just because a person does not indicate depressive symptoms in one survey is not always proof that he or she is doing OK,” Kamp Dush said. “We need to look at multiple indicators of mental health, including suicidal thoughts.”
The results do point to a possible “cyclical pattern” in which poor mental health leads to casual sex, which leads to further declines in mental health, Sandberg-Thoma said. “The goal should be to identify adolescents struggling with poor mental health so that we can intervene early before they engage in casual sexual relationships,” she said. Kamp Dush said casual sexual relationships may hurt the ability of young adults to develop committed relationships at an important time in their development. “Young adulthood is a time when people begin to learn how to develop long-term, satisfying and intimate relationships,” she said.
Wednesday, 2 October 2013
Girls' Views on Coercion
Girlguiding has released Care versus Control:
Healthy Relationships, which explores girls’ views on coercion.
Key findings from the attitudes survey include:
- 23% of girls aged 11 – 21 showed a full understanding of what an abusive relationship is
- 21% said that telling you what you can and can’t wear was acceptable
- 12% of girls aged 11 – 21 said that telling you who you can and can’t spend time with could sometimes be ok
- 21% said that shouting at you or calling you names because of what you may have done could sometimes be ok
- 22% said that checking up on you and reading your phone could sometimes be ok
- 96% of girls aged 11 – 21 said that it was never acceptable for a boy to hit, kick or punch his girlfriend for talking to someone else at a party
Monday, 23 September 2013
Divorce no longer a social taboo...
Divorce is no longer seen as a social
taboo. Nearly two
thirds of people now do not think there is a stigma attached to ending a
marriage as attitudes towards divorce have become more relaxed. Only 4
per cent of British people questioned said they strongly agreed that
divorce is a social taboo.
The research into the changing attitudes towards marriage found that it is young people who are now mostly likely to believe that divorce is socially acceptable. Only 56 per cent of people aged 18 to 24 said that divorce was taboo, compared to 67 per cent of 24- to 54-year-olds.
The poll of 2,000 people by YouGov for the DVD release of film I Give It A Year found that the words people most associated with marriage were commitment (37 per cent) and love (20 per cent). Only 4 per cent of people said that the word they most associated with marriage was divorce. The study further found that 28 is considered the best age to get married.
Working in the family law field, where I am confronted with family breakdown everyday, I have seen not only in my professional life, but in my personal life how divorce has become the norm in modern social life. It's familiar and has ceased to be the taboo it was in years gone by. Most of us have been affected by divorce, whether we’ve gone through it, know someone who has, or have been affected by our parents’ divorce, so the taboo status has lost much of its power.
The generational difference in attitude could be put down to the young couples’ proximity to parental divorce, and an unwillingness to repeat the same mistakes. What we are seeing is vast numbers of couples who give up on marriage or their relationships too quickly before seeking professional help. It has become the easy route out to separate or gain a divorce, rather than decide that a relationship is a commitment, and particularly in marriage - one that is for better or worse. The majority of people don't understand how complex and traumatic a decision like a divorce can be, before they go into it. There is no such thing as a painless divorce; we are just getting better adjusted to it as a part of modern Britain - and as part of the modern world.
TV actress Alison Steadman said that the stigma of divorce is now a thing of the past. The 66-year old said: ‘I can remember when I was at school there was one girl in my whole class, her parents were divorced and it was shocking, we as kids felt really sorry for her ... her mother had married again and it felt really odd. ‘I think now it seems to be the norm for kids that their parents don't stay together, sadly. ‘But times change and hopefully, maybe my sons' generation, there will be a switch again, maybe they will think again. ‘Because divorce is so easy now and it wasn't years ago and you had to go through all sorts of hoops. It was incredibly complicated, now it's just a question of saying “that's it”. ‘Perhaps we don't put the value on it that we did, I don't know.’ The actress married Mike Leigh in 1973 and split up with him in 1995 when she left him for actor Michael Elwyn.
My mother-in-law in South Africa who works with educational institutions has noted to me on many occasion how many young people sitting in classrooms across the country are impacted by their parents' divorces. And alot of them, not only once, but multiple times, where parents have been remarried. She mentioned to me that probably about 80% of the children sitting in primary school classrooms have been affected by parental separation.
I think alot of the unhappiness and dissatisfaction in relationships is down to expectations. And the media hasn't played a very pretty game in assisting the situation either. People are people - no matter who you decide to be with, you will at some point in the relationship, be faced with their raw humanity which is in its very nature, selfish and self-preserving. More often than not, you will be faced with your own selfishness, drive towards survival and desire to gratify your every wish. What would happen if more people decided to put their partner above themselves in those tough situations when everything screams to run. There is a definite fear that this will be perceived as weakness in a dog-eat-dog world. I think that this is bravest, most courageous and selfless action that mankind has going for it. That is true love. I don't mean that this concept should be extended to relationships where domestic violence or abuse is prevalent, by all means - no - that is reserved for a different time and space. I guess that we walk around with a sincerely warped view of what love is - and it's wrapped up in the romance, butterfly, romcom context rather than the hard-edged, commitment driven, the good, the bad and the ugly-but-I-still-choose-you mindset. So I ask - what would the world be like if we all made a decision like that on a daily basis?
The bottom line is that we cannot rely on our own strength to make this decision, because as humankind, we fail miserably at this, and we fail constantly - but there is one who can help us to do this, one who loves us impeccably, perfectly, without fail, unconditionally. He is the one how teaches us what true love is and how to operate in it, the more we surrender ourselves to him. He is the Christ.
The research into the changing attitudes towards marriage found that it is young people who are now mostly likely to believe that divorce is socially acceptable. Only 56 per cent of people aged 18 to 24 said that divorce was taboo, compared to 67 per cent of 24- to 54-year-olds.
The poll of 2,000 people by YouGov for the DVD release of film I Give It A Year found that the words people most associated with marriage were commitment (37 per cent) and love (20 per cent). Only 4 per cent of people said that the word they most associated with marriage was divorce. The study further found that 28 is considered the best age to get married.
Working in the family law field, where I am confronted with family breakdown everyday, I have seen not only in my professional life, but in my personal life how divorce has become the norm in modern social life. It's familiar and has ceased to be the taboo it was in years gone by. Most of us have been affected by divorce, whether we’ve gone through it, know someone who has, or have been affected by our parents’ divorce, so the taboo status has lost much of its power.
The generational difference in attitude could be put down to the young couples’ proximity to parental divorce, and an unwillingness to repeat the same mistakes. What we are seeing is vast numbers of couples who give up on marriage or their relationships too quickly before seeking professional help. It has become the easy route out to separate or gain a divorce, rather than decide that a relationship is a commitment, and particularly in marriage - one that is for better or worse. The majority of people don't understand how complex and traumatic a decision like a divorce can be, before they go into it. There is no such thing as a painless divorce; we are just getting better adjusted to it as a part of modern Britain - and as part of the modern world.
TV actress Alison Steadman said that the stigma of divorce is now a thing of the past. The 66-year old said: ‘I can remember when I was at school there was one girl in my whole class, her parents were divorced and it was shocking, we as kids felt really sorry for her ... her mother had married again and it felt really odd. ‘I think now it seems to be the norm for kids that their parents don't stay together, sadly. ‘But times change and hopefully, maybe my sons' generation, there will be a switch again, maybe they will think again. ‘Because divorce is so easy now and it wasn't years ago and you had to go through all sorts of hoops. It was incredibly complicated, now it's just a question of saying “that's it”. ‘Perhaps we don't put the value on it that we did, I don't know.’ The actress married Mike Leigh in 1973 and split up with him in 1995 when she left him for actor Michael Elwyn.
My mother-in-law in South Africa who works with educational institutions has noted to me on many occasion how many young people sitting in classrooms across the country are impacted by their parents' divorces. And alot of them, not only once, but multiple times, where parents have been remarried. She mentioned to me that probably about 80% of the children sitting in primary school classrooms have been affected by parental separation.
I think alot of the unhappiness and dissatisfaction in relationships is down to expectations. And the media hasn't played a very pretty game in assisting the situation either. People are people - no matter who you decide to be with, you will at some point in the relationship, be faced with their raw humanity which is in its very nature, selfish and self-preserving. More often than not, you will be faced with your own selfishness, drive towards survival and desire to gratify your every wish. What would happen if more people decided to put their partner above themselves in those tough situations when everything screams to run. There is a definite fear that this will be perceived as weakness in a dog-eat-dog world. I think that this is bravest, most courageous and selfless action that mankind has going for it. That is true love. I don't mean that this concept should be extended to relationships where domestic violence or abuse is prevalent, by all means - no - that is reserved for a different time and space. I guess that we walk around with a sincerely warped view of what love is - and it's wrapped up in the romance, butterfly, romcom context rather than the hard-edged, commitment driven, the good, the bad and the ugly-but-I-still-choose-you mindset. So I ask - what would the world be like if we all made a decision like that on a daily basis?
The bottom line is that we cannot rely on our own strength to make this decision, because as humankind, we fail miserably at this, and we fail constantly - but there is one who can help us to do this, one who loves us impeccably, perfectly, without fail, unconditionally. He is the one how teaches us what true love is and how to operate in it, the more we surrender ourselves to him. He is the Christ.
Monday, 16 September 2013
Online Sexual Abuse
A survey by the British Association of Social
Workers (BASW) and the NSPCC shows that half of all social workers are
concerned about dealing with online sexual abuse or behavior and need more
training. Key figures include:
- Almost half (49%) of social workers said that 25% of their sexual abuse cases now involve some form of online abuse
- A third (34%) of social workers said they were not confident understanding the language used by young people online
- 47% said they were not knowledgeable about how young people communicate via social networking
- 36% felt they did not know the right questions to ask to identify and assess online sexual abuse
- 30% said they did not feel confident dealing with child protection sexual abuse cases using the internet
- 50% say they don’t know what how to recognise the signs of the online sexual abuse of children
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