Guest Blogger
Feather Berkower
Feather Berkower has been a leader in child sexual abuse prevention since 1985. Using a community-based approach, she has trained over 100,000 schoolchildren, parents, and professionals. Her highly regarded workshop, Parenting Safe Children, empowers adults to keep children safe from sexual abuse. She presents across the country in schools, youth organizations, parenting groups, homes, places of faith, and businesses. Feather makes a difficult topic less scary, and empowers parents and communities to keep children safe.
Parenting Safe Children helped to inspire Off Limits, a parenting book that will change the way you think about keeping kids safe. Off Limits presents easy-to-follow guidelines for making children, homes, and communities off limits to child sexual abusers.
Prior to founding Parenting Safe Children, Feather managed a regional chapter of the Child Assault Prevention Program, which delivers school-based curricula to protect children and teens from bullying and sexual assault.
Feather is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and holds a Master’s of Social Welfare <from the University of California, Berkeley. She conducts media interviews, workshops, and private consultations throughout the United States regarding issues of child sexual abuse and safety.
Feather lives in Colorado with her husband. She is an avid outdoorswoman and enjoys hiking and riding her horse.
www.parentingsafechildren.com/
Is Your Child Trying to Tell You Something?
Children don’t usually tell us how they are feeling in a direct way especially about their worries. Instead, they say things out of context, give clues, and as they get older, test the waters to see how a topic might be received. This means we have to listen extra carefully and inquire, even when the [...]
Read full story
Seizing Teachable Moments to Reinforce Body Safety
Parents often ask me how to talk with children about sexual abuse prevention without scaring them. I recommend teaching kids prevention through body safety. Children provide us with teachable moments each and every day for reinforcing body-safety concepts in an age-appropriate, non-threatening way. Just think about all the questions kids ask from “How does the [...]
Read full story
How Is Your Child’s School Reducing the Risk of Child Sexual Abuse?
While summer is in full swing, children will be starting or returning to school in no time. If you have not had a chance to screen your child’s school, preschool, daycare, or activity program for child sexual abuse prevention, there’s no time like the present. We recommend inviting both the school director and teachers onto [...]
Read full story
Empowering Your Child to Say “No!”
It is a parent’s responsibility to keep children safe by safe screening caregivers, but it is also useful to teach children how to deal with difficult situations should someone try to break a body-safety rule. If Somebody Tries to Touch Your Private Parts, Say “No” or “Stop It.” While it’s important to teach children to [...]
Read full story
Do Your Children Have Body-Safety Rules?
We teach children numerous rules for being safe, from blowing on hot soup and using the cross walk to wearing a seat belt and riding with a helmet. But what about personal body safety around touch, private parts, and boundaries? It turns out that children who are knowledgeable about body-safety are not only more confident, [...]
Read full story
