Live reporting - Darkness to Light Program

F. HEARINGS - none

G. LICENSE TRANSACTIONS - none

H. PRESENTATIONS/DISCUSSIONS

Tony     (10th year with local Y)
Vice President Child Responsibility

YMCA – Darkness to Light Program
Program to prevent child sexual abuse, training developed and community awareness programs coming to Franklin
goal is to have 5% of the adult population take the training within 3-5 years
the 5% is calculated to be the tipping point (from a book by Malcolm Gladwell)
90% of the abused children know their abuser, it is generally not the "stranger danger' that has been popularized.
Program coming to five communities served by the YMCA
Meeting with various organizations to build awareness for the program

Information on the program was previously published here
http://www.franklinmatters.org/2011/09/community-awareness-meetings-on-child.html

Looking for about 1,000 adults to take this training
by training the adults, the word should spread and the abuse should diminish
similar approach to that taken for improving seat belt use in autos

McGann - congrats this is a great program
This is not a YMCA program, this is a community program, the facilitators need training, the Y has five people trained, we'll be looking to train other facilitators
It is not any one's problem, it is a community problem, a societal problem
Child protective behaviors are enhanced by the training

Powderly - the preventative approach to this is groundbreaking. I am thrilled that the Town groups are on board. Thank you for bringing it to our community

One quick example, a Y on the north shore went through this training, a staff person noticed some changes in a young girl, through the observation and the training, she was able to identify a situation to change the life of a 10 year old girl. Charleston, SC where this program started has just trained their 10,000 adult.

There is tremendous economic impact to this problem that we don't always recognize.