Online course "Prevention of child sexual abuse"

e-learning, child sexual abuse, prevention, qualification

07/2011-09/2014

After sexual abuse in institutions of the Catholic Church and reform pedagogy became public in 2010, politicians reacted to these cases and the ongoing media debate by founding the Round Table on Child Sexual Abuse in Relationships of Dependency and Power in Private and Public Institutions and in Families (RTKM). At the Round Table, Sub-Working Group III at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) called for targeted research efforts to improve basic knowledge and the translation of specialised knowledge into practice, as well as a broad initiative in education, further education and training. In the course of the surveys conducted by the contact point of the Independent Commissioner for Child Sexual Abuse Issues, Dr Bergmann, a lack of qualification of possible initial contact persons of children and adolescents with regard to the prevention of sexual abuse became clear and the demand for an expansion of training and further education measures was formulated. According to their own statements, many of those affected had never had a contact person to whom they could report the sexual violence and were unable to find appropriate help.

"In this context, an application was submitted to the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in May 2011 as part of the "Digital media in vocational training" funding programme to create and evaluate an online course on the prevention of child sexual abuse. The project application was approved and the online course was developed and evaluated between 2011 and 2014. 3000 people successfully completed the course during this phase.

Funding from a foundation enabled the course to be revised in terms of technology and content. Since April 2022, it has been available via the Saarland Child Protection Platform(https://kinderschutz-im-saarland.de) for a participation fee that covers the costs."

Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)