The safety of children must be the primary focus of every school district’s plan to return to learning – and Delaware’s Christina School District is choosing the protection of students from abuse and neglect as a top priority. 

Even before COVID-19, Christina (the second-largest school district in Delaware) worked with the Beau Biden Foundation to train their entire staff in Stewards of Children® – a two-hour, facilitator-led training which teaches adults to prevent, recognize, and react responsibly to child sexual abuse.

When pandemic struck, Christina was among the first to reach out to the Foundation with a genuine concern for their students and how they could continue to help protect children in this uncharted online territory.

Since then, the Christina School District has made the Beau Biden Foundation’s online trainings openly available to their staff. These trainings – Grooming Children, Families, and Organizations; Recognizing and Reporting Child Abuse and Neglect; Protecting Children in a Virtual Learning Environment – are all accredited education workshops that provide educators with the tools they need to protect children.

The Christina School District also continually exceeds the state-required minimum of three hours of (non-academic) child abuse training every three years. So far, in 2020, 1,637 Christina School District employees have been trained to recognize and report abuse. And, with nine more virtual abuse prevention workshops slated for the 2020-2021 school year, they are leading the pack in training adults to protect children and confront abuse.

We applaud the Christina School District for making abuse prevention paramount in their schools. We encourage all districts and youth-serving organizations to partner with us to help protect children and confront abuse during these turbulent times, and beyond.

If you’re interested in helping protect students in your school district or youth-serving organization, please fill out the form below.