kNot Today Launches Free Child Protection Guide to Help Parents and Caregivers Prevent Sexual Abuse, Exploitation and Trafficking Before it Begins

kNot Today Launches Free Child Protection Guide to Help Parents and Caregivers Prevent Sexual Abuse, Exploitation and Trafficking Before it Begins

We started the kNot Today foundation with a passion and a heart for children. But we knew that in order to make the greatest impact in the lives of children, we’d need a team of experts behind us.

Download the Child Protection Guide

At the start of this year, we began speaking with doctors, psychologists and service providers that work with children who are trauma-informed. We wanted to know how kNot Today could make a difference quickly. The conversation kept turning to prevention and specifically education – of parents, grandparents, caregivers, teachers- who are in positions to stop abuse, exploitation and trafficking before it begins.

There is a lot of great information on this topic that can be discovered across the internet, but we thought about the parent who is working long hours and relies on family and friends to babysit or the parent who is moving for a partner’s job and constantly looking for childcare in new cities. Often what these parents lack…. is time; time to find the best information, time to research caregivers, time to check in on their child’s internet activity.

“As a mother, who has moved frequently and been a part of many different communities across the country from the West Coast to East Coast and now the Midwest, I wish someone would have helped me along the way,” said Linda Reich. “I know I would have benefited from information in a concise format that could equip me, prepare me for playdates, coaches, and the internet. I hope this guide can help those who come behind me.”

That’s where the concept of an easy to understand, short, guidebook for caregivers came. We want to provide parents and caregivers with the basics in one, easy to consume piece of content. This guidebook doesn’t have it all, and it’s not meant to, but we hope it can start the education and the conversation on this topic.

We created the Child Protection Guide in partnership with experts like Dr. Holly Robinson a pediatrician with over 20 years experience in sexual abuse care, lawyers, moms, and teachers, survivors, and parents of survivors, the Federal Burearu of Investigation (FBI), and Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Indiana Task Force. Over several months, we ran a series of focus groups to hone in on the most important information and stayed in touch to receive continuous feedback on the content in the guide.

“Parents have to be on top of this subject with their children because it happens more often than you can imagine. I’ve had so many parents tell me ‘I wish I would have known. I wish I would have taught my children what to look out for.’ You are your child’s advocate, and you have to know what’s going on. No one is exempt,” said Reich.

We hope that this guide will educate and inform you and your family on how you can best protect your child, in-person and online, and provide you with some tools to engage with your children on this subject. The best thing we can do to protect our children is to empower them. Take the time to talk.

You can download the Child Protection Guide for free at knottoday.org/guide. To give us feedback or to talk with a member of our team, you can email us at info@knottoday.org or text ‘KNOT’  to 55433.