Child sexual abuse is a form of child maltreatment that affects one in five children in Europe (Council of Europe, 2011). Many studies have shown the impact it can have both on academic results and on the acquisition of key skills in the social sphere, among many other physical and psychological consequences. The Children's Rights, UP! Preventing child sexual abuse, through the promotion of key competences and healthy behaviours in young children from all cultures, is a project. Its main purpose was to develop an effective, realistic and quality child sexual abuse prevention program aimed at preschool education classrooms that takes into account the different cultural, religious and social sensitivities that exist in Europe. The objectives of the project were: 1) Improve the acquisition of key skills in boys and girls aged 4 and 5, emphasising social skills; 2) Promote sexual education for boys and girls aged 4 and 5 years from the promotion of health; 3) Overcome existing obstacles to the development of programs to prevent early childhood sexual abuse by families, professionals, and organisations; 4) Offer the necessary tools so that teachers can prevent and address situations of child sexual abuse in the classroom; 5) Offer tools to families for the prevention of child sexual abuse daily through the promotion of the health and well-being of minors. The project's target groups were preschool teachers, children aged 4 and 5 and their families. It prioritised its implementation in multicultural contexts, where there were different family structures with a diversity of religious or political beliefs, socioeconomic level or geographical origin. The project has used a participatory methodology including the target groups of the project through eight participatory workshops with 4 and 5-year-old boys and girls from four different countries; the organisation of four discussion groups that reviewed and made contributions to improve the first version of the results (made up of people who were victims of sexual abuse in their childhood; experts in preschool education; experts in sexual education in early ages and parents of different cultures and religions) and finally a pilot test was also carried out in eight schools in four different countries with preschool teachers, children, and their families. Within the framework of the project, the following five products were produced: A teaching guide for the prevention of sexual abuse at an early age for early childhood teachers; Two children's stories for the prevention of sexual abuse from an early age; an Online course on the prevention of child sexual abuse in preschool education for teachers; A prevention kit for families and an awareness kit on the issues addressed by the project. Within the framework of the project, two national seminars were organised in Spain and Finland. There was also a European seminar in Italy and a final European conference in Brussels, from which the main results and contributions of the project were presented. The project is considered to have improved the visibility of the importance and need to address the prevention of child sexual abuse and sexual education at an early age from the school and family context. While also improving the acquisition of key competencies in the social sphere and the academic performance of children in the long term.
The project's main objective was to create a programme for preventing child sexual abuse that can be applied in any existing reality regardless of their cultural, religious, or social context in the European environment and capable of involving the educational community, families, and children of 4 and 5 years. The objectives we wanted and we have achieved are the following: 1) Promote the sexual education of boys and girls of 4 and 5 years from health promotion, previously training teachers. 2) Overcome existing obstacles to developing abuse prevention programmes through awareness-raising instruments. 3) Offer tools so that teachers can prevent and address situations of child sexual abuse in the classroom through realistic, quality, structured information adapted to every stage. 4) Offer families tools to prevent child sexual abuse from everyday life through information adapted to their context.
Child sexual abuse is a phenomenon in Europe, affecting approximately 20% of the population. The consequences of child sexual abuse can be diverse: impact in the psychological, social, and educational spheres, increasing the risk of dropping out. They may also affect the acquisition of key competences. Prevention at an early age is vital and involves the entire community. Before this project, there was no specific prevention programme for child sexual abuse that could be applied in preschool classrooms (4 and 5-year-old boys and girls) adaptable to any context regardless of the culture, religion, or social context; present in the European context and involving the most critical agents in the children's life: the school and the family. The Children's rights project, UP! responds to all of the above, being able to generate a comprehensive prevention program for child sexual abuse capable of training, raising awareness, and developing tools for the educational community, for families, and children. As a result of this project, five tools (intellectual products) have been created for the different target groups, interconnected.