Journal of Child and Adolescent Behavior
Open Access

Research Article

Design of a Comprehensive One-Year Program at the Be Brave Ranch to help Children who have been Victims of Sexual Abuse

¹Department of Psychiatry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

²Little Warriors Be Brave Ranch, Ardrossan, Alberta, Canada

³Department of Psychology, City University of Seattle in Canada, Edmonton, Canada

*Corresponding Author:

Silverstone PH
Department of Psychiatry
Faculty of Business
University of Alberta
1E7.17 Mackenzie Centre 8114 -112 Street
Edmonton, Alberta Canada
Tel: +1-780-407-6576
Fax: +1-780-407-6672
E-mail:peter.silverstone@ualberta.ca

Received Date: December 22, 2014; Accepted Date: January 19, 2015; Published Date: January 23, 2015

Citation: Silverstone PH, Greenspan F , Silverstone M, Sawa H, Linder J (2015) Design of a Comprehensive one-year program at the Be Brave Ranch to help children who have been victims of Sexual Abuse . J Child Adolesc Behav 3:180. doi:10.4172/2375-4494.1000180

Copyright: © 2015 Silverstone PH, et al,. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Abstract Childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is frequent, but treatment remains variable. We have designed a novel, intensive, and comprehensive 1-year program for children aged 8-12. This involves 4 periods during which the children stay at a “camp-like” facility (with parents or guardian whenever possible) for an initial period of 4 weeks followed by 3 further 2-week periods (at 4, 8, and 12 months). During these periods they receive more than 200 hours of therapy and in-between the children and their family are supported by weekly outpatient group sessions. The goals are to improve symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, quality-of-life, self-esteem, and attachment. The primary therapeutic approach is trauma-focused cognitive behavioural therapy (TF-CBT) provided within a group session. Other therapeutic approaches include play therapy, art therapy, and animal assisted therapy. The program, at a facility called the “Be Brave Ranch”, has been designed to also provide a enjoyable activities in addition to the therapeutic sessions, including yoga, arts, games, music, animal interactions, as well as evening programming. Children who have been victims of CSA can have problems with cognitive development, and so receive daily cognitive training utilizing the on-line My cognition program to improve memory, attention, psychomotor speed, and executive functioning. We intend to determine the effectiveness of this program, compared to baseline, with each child acting as their own control. Outcomes will be measured in future research studies by changes in the Child Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Symptom Scale, Kid-KINDL, revised Children’s Anxiety and Depression Scale, and questions on attachment. In conclusion, this novel and comprehensive program may offer a new approach to helping children with CSA, and it is intended that key elements will be adapted to outpatient environments to provide more widespread availability of best care for child victims of CSA.

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