Child Abuse Prevention Services (CAPS) is dedicated to preventing the sexual abuse of minors by partnering with Marshall County schools to educate students from grades PreK through 12 on sexual health.
These curriculums look different for different age groups, but they are all focused on preventing abuse and promoting healthy relationships.
CAPS Program Supervisor Esmiralda Monroy said the curriculum is rigorously vetted to ensure it is both evidence based and age appropriate. They have several individuals who are responsible for facilitating these lessons in schools in tandem with guidance counselors and teachers.
“For years and years, we’ve worked with the Marshalltown school district. We’ve been so grateful that they allow us to come into the school and offer this curriculum to the kids,” she said.
There are two separate programs taught by CAPS representatives in school classrooms. One is for grades PreK through four, and it is dedicated to preventing sexual abuse. The other one is for grades five through 12, and it teaches overall sexual health.
The curriculum for the grades up to fourth grade includes four 30-minute sessions taught by Lori Frederick. The curriculum is specifically geared towards teaching students about body awareness, appropriate touches and self-care. These sessions are ideally within four weeks, according to Monroy, because that provides enough time for information to sink in without interrupting the overall flow.
“We absolutely understand that schools are working with very tricky and limited time that they’re letting us in. So, it doesn’t always work out that way, but all the schools we work with — because we’re also in West Marshall and East Marshall and some of the smaller schools — they really try to work with us and try to give us time to go in there and offer the curriculum in a way that students will get the most out of it,” Monroy said.
Oftentimes after these sessions, these younger kids are able to connect the dots if they are in an abusive situation, and as a result, they can reach out for help.
“For the younger kids, I would say we average anywhere from three to five disclosures during the year, and that is directly to our educator when she’s there,” Monroy said. “A lot of times, as you can imagine, especially for younger kids, but any child really, they don’t have the developmental capacity to say ‘Hey, that’s what’s been happening to me.’ It takes a while sometimes.”
Monroy said this shows the programs are working the way they are intended, and if the programs encourage a child to reach out for help, that’s the most important thing.
The curriculum for fifth through 12th grade, which is taught by Taylor Woebbeking and Andrea Green, is more focused on sexual health education and teaching students how to make responsible decisions. The older students have three 30-minute sessions, with each focusing on a slightly different aspect of the topic.
Linda Havelka, the executive director of CAPS, said in younger students, they are looking for signs of sexual abuse, but in older students they are looking to prevent sexual assaults.
“The older they get, we’re looking more at giving them the refusal skills and giving them the skills that they can use when they’re in situations, or to prevent a situation from happening,” she said.
Havelka and Monroy presented the school board with an overview of the services they are offering within the Marshalltown Community School District (MCSD) at Monday night’s board meeting, and board members were all glad to see the range of ages that CAPS was reaching out to and educating.
“I think it’s really important that we cover the PreK-12 grade span, because I think our best opportunity to help kids is by building those relationships and that knowledge and having them feel comfortable with being able to go to somebody if something is not right,” Superintendent Theron Schutte said.
In addition to school-based curriculums, CAPS is also working to educate parents as well, with outreach events such as their recent December event where they partnered with the Marshalltown Police Department to teach parents how to identify the signs of sexual abuse and grooming.
