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Duration:23:05
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MLA Full: "Child Safety with Detective Katie Petersen." YouTube, uploaded by Sexplanations, 8 November 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayjrsgdVhcw.
MLA Inline: (Sexplanations, 2020)
APA Full: Sexplanations. (2020, November 8). Child Safety with Detective Katie Petersen [Video]. YouTube. https://youtube.com/watch?v=ayjrsgdVhcw
APA Inline: (Sexplanations, 2020)
Chicago Full: Sexplanations, "Child Safety with Detective Katie Petersen.", November 8, 2020, YouTube, 23:05,
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ayjrsgdVhcw.
A few months back when I was working on an abuse case I was encouraged to reach out to Katie Petersen regarding law enforcement. We spoke at length about my case and then she shared how important it is for adults to talk openly with children about sexual abuse as a form of abuse prevention and protection. I listened curiously and loved what Katie taught me. So much so that I asked her to talk with me more on camera so you can learn too.

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 (00:00) to (02:00)


[intro]

Lindsey: So, some months back, I contacted Katie from the police station about her experience with abuse; I was going through something, and I wanted to know the appropriate ways that people who respond to abuse disclosure could do so. And in that conversation, she told me one of the things that she has found really important in her work is making sure that children know about sexual abuse. Yeah?

Katie: Yes.

L: Am I understanding this correctly?

K: Yeah, yeah. So, I have been a police officer for going on 20 years now. I worked in patrol for five years and then transferred to the detective division after five years in patrol, and I worked investigating sexual crimes against children for about 10 years, and then I moved to another position called the ICAC Task Force - Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force - and I investigated what we call "child pornography," which is actually kind of an older term that we're phasing out. It's actually "child sexual abuse material" because "pornography" indicates that the child is actually into it, when what we're actually watching when we have sexualized images or videos of children is children being raped.

So, anyway, I've investigated those crimes for just over four years, and then I've recently transferred out of the detective division and now I'm specifically working digital forensics. So, it means if we seize a cellphone or a computer, I'm the one who is actually examining the device. So, it's a more technical position, but of course, I still have all that experience in child sexual abuse crimes, and so one of the things that I can do is help out when we do have devices that have images of children on them.

L: So, what is it that you think that is important. Let children know about sexual abuse, that we talk about sexual abuse?

K: Well, that kids are comfortable with the topic of sex in general, and if something doesn't feel right - whether it's appropriate or inappropriate - that they have a safe person to talk to, and that we give the kids the safe platform to have these discussions. In the same way that you may not want to talk to somebody about something uncomfortable that's going on -

 (02:00) to (04:00)


K: - something uncomfortable that's going on with your body when you're a kid, how, if as adults, we're not willing to hear what they have to say about their body or about an interaction that they had with somebody - if we don't give them the words, if we don't give them the space - then how do we expect to know what's going on?

L: We can't help them.
 
K: Right. It's just a really uncomfortable topic for anyone, and so to expect a child to be comfortable with this topic without us showing some kind of comfort level, I think would be nearly impossible.

So, I was on the board of directors for The Parenting Place, which is a child abuse prevention center, and one of the things that I noticed with The Parenting Place is that although they addressed child abuse, they were never specifically addressing child sexual abuse prevention. And so I reached out to them, had a great conversation with their board of directors and ended up on their board for seven years, and actually termed out of that organization, but I still volunteer and donate. 

And one of the things that I wanted them to bring to the forefront that that child abuse - the overarching umbrella of child abuse - also does include sexual abuse. And so, The Parenting Place was extremely receptive to that and provided employees there with education around what happens if in what they're doing they suspect child sexual abuse, or they've got a family is going through something that they may not necessarily be the resource but can at least point the people to the correct resources. So, they know who in the community they can reach out for support, for reporting, what it looks like. 

And then, after I termed out there, I started working with the Boys & Girls Club, and that's an organization that provides programming for kids in after-school and summertime.

L: Wow.

K: But just another focus on ways to keep kids safe. If we have programming for kids after school, we know that we've got them with background-checked adults, and we've got them engaged in activities, and they're less likely to get into trouble with other kids in an unsupervised situations.

L: Basically you're saying that experts do know that these things work.

 (04:00) to (06:00)


L: - that these things work. That when we educate and we give information to young people to make decisions, that they end up making the healthier decision.

K: Yes. There are some great books that I've read, and one of the more formative books that I've read was a book written by Feather Berkower, she's actually in Boulder, Colorado. It was talking about the words that we can use to talk to kids about keeping our bodies safe. And the big thing is that this isn't on the kid's to report to us; this is on adults to keep kids safe, but the kids needed to words to come to us.

And so, she will talk to us about things like body parts using the correct terms. So if a child goes to a teacher and says, "My dad's touching my cookie," the teacher may not equate "cookie" with "vagina." But if you have a child who goes up to a teacher and says, "My dad's touching my vagina," that teacher - although now they're in a position to have to handle what this child's telling them, that child has used an accurate term that clearly relays what's going on. And so, Feather talks about that.

She also talks about using-, never keeping secrets, only keeping surprises, and surprises are good things. And so, I remember when my child was in kindergarten they were learning sounds and they were doing the "secret sounds" - which was like an "s-h" or a "t-h" -  and I remember about having a panic attack, I'm like, "We don't keep secrets!" Because she came home and she's like, "I'm learning secret sounds," I'm like, "No!" [laughs] And I'm not going to throw off the education system and say, "There are no secret sounds" - it wouldn't be appropriate to call them "surprise sounds" -  but we talk about how that's just a language thing, that's just a learning thing.

But in real life, we're not keeping secrets, because if my child is the type of child who's really good at keeping secrets, it's going to make her a really great target for a predator who understands that she keeps secrets. But if somebody were to say, "I'm gonna give you an extra cookie, and you need to keep this a secret from your mom," she's going to respond back, "We don't keep secrets."

Feather also has a lot of really great recommendations. And when I read this book, I was like, "Why doesn't everybody -


 (06:00) to (08:00)


K: "Why doesn't everybody read this book?" It should be something that's handed to parents -

L: I want to read it!

K: - as the child exits their body, or as they adopt a child, they should be given this book. So that was the first book that I read that really hit home for me.

L: And then, you wanted to apply that to everything that you do to help kids already.

K: Yes. For five years, worked with a group, what we did was we really wanted to take a look at our community, and did we have overlapping programs, where do we lack programs, what laws needed to be changed, what education programs could we use in our town - we accomplished what we wanted to, and then this group just disbanded just because we were able to get the Darkness to Light program up and running in Missoula - Stewards of Children: Darkness to Light. We were able to change a couple of the laws that were outdated.

L: Then that work seems like such an important part of your resource base. So, you've got the book, and the book helped you with the language, and then that applied to your field, and then you shared it -

K: Yes.

L: - and made, it sounds like a community effort to protect children.

K: Well, in talking to people I have lots of friends who are doctors, nurses, teachers, counselors, social workers, realize that there isn't people who are willing to talk to-, there's mandatory reporting training, but there's not many people in our community who are willing to come into a group of teachers and say, "Hey, if in class or at school you have a child who makes a disclosure to you or you suspect something's going on, this is what you can do, and this is what happens next." After you make that mandatory call, which Child Protective Services does offer some mandatory reporting training, but what happens next? And how do you actually handle that disclosure when that child says something? Or do you really trust your gut instinct and make that call to CPS?

So, just talking to teachers and being able to answer questions about what happens when that child goes home to that household that evening and the suspected offender is in that home? You know, what goes on in the teacher's brain?

 (08:00) to (10:00)


K: - teacher's brain. And then, once that child goes home to that situation, how long does it take til somebody responds? And then what actually happens, like, boots on the ground, what actually happens with that child and their family as they go through the system.

And so, I was kind of "demystifying" this reporting of child sex abuse and it got around town like wildfire that I was doing these presentations. And so, then I was travelling within our state to be able to give these presentations. My department is supportive in my educational endeavors here, however, they're like, "Well, here's another case, here's another case, here's a-" the cases still keep coming. So, most of the time I do it just as a volunteer thing just because I think it's important.

And this isn't coming from any sort of-, I don't have any fantastic childhood trauma; this is just something I think is important.

L: It's so cool what you do, Katie.

K: Well, thanks.

L: Thank you. Thank you for doing it.

K: Well, I figure I can, so I should.

L: So, am I understanding correctly that you are teaching the trainers, so to speak - the guardians and the educators. You're not talking with the kids directly?

K: Well, in some cases I am. Once I started investigating child sexual abuse material, I actually did start talking to the kids. I requested feedback the first few times that I worked with kids; I wanted to make sure that I wasn't speaking to them in a way that was more adult-like or causing the teacher to get phone calls from the parents later that evening, "What was this detective talking about?" So, there was a shift there.

But I started talking to kids about, not necessarily body safety -. Oh, that was another thing that Feather talks about in her book, is body safety. So, it incorporating it into, like, fire safety. "If you have a fire in your house, where do you go? If you cross a street, you look both ways. If somebody touches you in a way that makes you uncomfortable, what do you do?" And so, it's just safety in general. And so, that's a way I approach it with kids: "It's just a safety thing, and you're the boss of your own body."

So, with these kids, when I started into the ICAC position, that position is actually 25% -

 (10:00) to (12:00)


K: - percent mandatory in education, whether it's teaching adults, or whether it's talking to kids and doing presentations.

L: That's great.

K: And so, it gave me the opportunity to talk to kids, and it was more about the digital stuff, though. "If you take pictures of your body - your naked body - and you send them to somebody else, what are the repercussions?" Or talking to little kids, I'm certainly not talking about that, but talking to them about, "It's important to-, if somebody is taking photos of you, that the parts of your body that are normally covered by a swimsuit are covered in these photos. And if somebody were to ask you to take photos of you and it made you uncomfortable, it's okay to talk to an adult." And getting the kids thinking about, "Who are safe people that you can identify to talk to if someone makes you uncomfortable?

And with little kids, we're talking about maybe a safe email name. So, you're not putting your name and your favorite activity into your email address or a safe screen name. So, if you have somebody who uses their name "Johnny" and then "soccer" and it's a Snapchat name, somebody who's on Snapchat they automatically have something to talk to that child about. They know their name, so they can refer to them by name, and the child may think, "Oh, how did they know my name? They must know my parents," or "It's another kid that's at my school, and there's that connection for soccer."

The other thing I talk to kids about is when they post photos, what's in the background? And what does their tee shirt say, and are there street signs, and are there license plates so that they can see what state they're from, they can see maybe what street they live on? And so, there are ways for somebody to gain familiarity with a child. So, I talk to kids about-, I'll put up a picture, and like, "What do you know about this child based on only this photo?" So that they can see what school they go to, what sport they like, maybe what town they live in.

I typically don't talk to kids any younger than 5th grade, and when I talk to 5th, 6th, 7th graders, I'm not trying to scare kids, and so, we just talk about safety in general. And then when we get into those kids who are seniors in -

 (12:00) to (14:00)


K: - seniors in high school who are maybe taking a criminology class and I'm coming in and presenting, these are kids who have already been through all the programs where they typically know this stuff and oftentimes they know better than their parents how to stay safe on the internet or what "catfishing" is or how to recognize a bot or some sort of a phishing scheme - these kids aren't the ones-, they've grown up with the technology, so they're not necessarily the ones being targeted.

So, what I like to talk to those kids about are, "What are the times that this has failed? Where are the times where these little, underdeveloped prefrontal lobes have failed these kids and they've ended up on my caseload?" When I do tell these stories, they are based in our community, however, I do change enough information because these are their peers, and they might be from a different high school or an adjacent community.

But I want them to know that there was a kid who was lured into sending naked photos of themself to a really pretty girl, and then when he started to realize he'd been catfished, he found out that this really pretty girl he was chatting with was actually a porn star. And whoever he was chatting with had just stolen those photos and was pretending to be her, but yet, a photo of his face and his naked body were on the internet, and they had already figured out who he was and requested that he send them money. And then he said, "Well, I'm not even old enough to have a credit card, how can I send you money?" And they said, "Well, I had a 12 year old send me money earlier, go steal a parent's credit card."

So, they had figured out who this kid was on social media and started sending these images of him to people on his social media in order to show them that they were being serious. So, somewhere he heard what an adult said, and so he contacted his mom and said, "I messed up," and his mom said, "Okay. I need you to deactivate your social media, and then let's call the police and see what we can do to help get ahead of this."

And so, the kid did the right thing in contacting a parent, and I LOVE that the parent didn't freak out. The parent could've said SO many things, but instead was like, "Thank you for telling me."

 (14:00) to (16:00)


K: And so that reaction from the trusted adult is so important. And so this kid had to make a really humble phone call, I mean, he's the one who ended up calling 9-1-1 to say, "Hey, I need some help over here." So, I actually talked to the kid's mom and went and met up with him in person and brought my computer to him to be able to grab some information off of his phone. And unfortunately, in this situation - as so many of these situations happen - the offender was overseas.

And so, I can refer this to Interpol, but it may be a country where this isn't illegal, they may be buried under so many layers of internet protection that it's just not worth our time and effort to get back to that offender. And so, a lot of times it's kind of like, "Hey, you did the right thing, sorry about your luck. Yes, your photos are potentially out there forever." It's a really, really difficult lesson.

And, once these kids' images are on the internet, there are studies showing that once these images of these kids are out there, that it produces anxiety that's unlike hands-on sexual abuse because they're afraid that places that they go, somebody might recognize their face. And so, it produces often longer-term anxiety, even through adulthood. And so, we need to make sure that our kids are willing to talk to us about this, and as adults, we are willing to hear what they say.


L: I am so intrigued by the prevention aspect and wanting to build language for children so that they have the skills-, they know what to say to go to a safe adult, explain what they're afraid of, or negotiate and say, "Hey, this person is sending me pictures and asking me for pictures; is that something that people do? And what are the consequences?"


I'm also really curious in your trainings or in your practice how you separate education from victim-blaming. So like, "Here, kiddo. Here's all the things that you should know to protect yourself. And it is not your fault if it happens."

K: Oh, yeah. One of the things that I tell kids who do come into my caseload -


 (16:00) to (18:00)


K: - caseload, kids that I do meet, is that this is something that happened to them, and that they did the right thing by talking about what happened and they're really brave for doing that, and that this is not their responsibility to prevent, this is our responsibility as adults to keep kids safe.

Kids will, I found a lot of times, test their boundaries in every way. And so, maybe that photo that they send where maybe the girl sends a photo when she's wearing her bra and it's a little risqué, and then the person who gets that image is like, "Well, now that we've got this, I'm gonna send it to your mom unless you send me a photo without a bra on." And so, that child is in a panicky state, and it is not their fault. The adult should not be asking for those images.

L: Yeah. It's on the perpetrator of any age.

K: Oh my goodness, absolutely. So, you should be able to have little kids running around naked in a park and completely safe from predators. I mean, they're children, our bodies are natural, there's a difference between nudity and sexuality, and bodies are naked, you shouldn't have to put clothes on them to prevent abuse.

L: Ooh, Katie, that was beautiful!

K: Well, you must feel the same way! [laughs]

L: I do.

K: Yeah, but it's like those little-kid photos in the bathtub, in the age that that we're in now, we don't look at those the same because you don't know who's hands they're going to end up in - literally and figuratively. But kids should be kids and they should be able to be naked little kids running around.

L: I mean, I want to be a naked adult running around.

K: Oh gosh, right? Well, and the other thing, too, it depends on what culture you live in, what country you live in! And in so many countries, you hear about the National Geographic-type photos, and we have nudist colonies, and those photos are photos you can find on the internet, and we do have kids running around naked and it's just natural and normal in so many places. And in the United States, -

 (18:00) to (20:00)


K: - in the United States, we believe that "after this age, children should be putting clothes on," and like I said, one of the things that I like is "the parts of your body covered by a swimsuit" and maybe I should add on "in the United States, in our really stifled country, girls have to cover up their tops, and in other countries it's not that big of a deal. And nudist beaches aren't that big of a deal."

L: But I love how you phrase it, that I'm not wearing these clothes to prevent being raped; I'm wearing these clothes because that is part of the cultural negotiation.

K: Yes. "Cultural negotiation." Oo, I like that.

L: Mm!

K: Here's another rabbit hole for me to go down: If you have somebody in the United States who is sexually interested in children, there is no place that I'm aware of for them to go get help without persecution. So, how do you go to your therapist and say, "I am sexually into-." You know, if you have a man who goes to a therapist and says, "I am sexually into adult women, and I'm also sexual into prepubescent females." Because sexuality is often so fluid that people aren't just necessarily just attracted to similar-age/opposite-gender; they might be attracted to a certain age group or age range, or a certain gender or gender range - it's not, you know, you don't get to pick.

And there's the "nature vs. nurture," and so is there something formative that happened in this person's life that that's maybe why they're interested in a child that age and that gender? Or is it something they're just hardwired into? And I don't have a great answer for that, I've read lots of research, and there doesn't seem to be any great conclusion.

But, in the same token, when I speak with offenders, if I shame somebody about what's happened, about what's come to light, there's no way they're going to talk to me. And so, I tell everybody in my interviews, "As suspects, I'm going to treat you the same way that I want somebody in my family treated." And I stand to it, I stand by it. I mean, I talk about accountability, and if we're in this position where they've been accused -

 (20:00) to (22:00)


K: - where they've been accused of something, my job is a fact-finder, and it's not the kid's word against the person's word because I have statements potentially from both. But then there's corroboration, and that's what I look for, and if the child has been truthful about 99% of everything else that they've talked about - what the house looked like, what the room looked like, what happened beforehand, what happened after - then why would the child make this up? This 1%?

And so, we look at motivation, we look at possible recantation, but there's so much that goes into it. And there's times where I get to the bottom of an investigation and I'm not real clear on what happened. And I may end up telling the investi-, the person who's been accused, "I'm not sure what's going on here, but if you have an interest in children - a sexualized interest in children - you need to know 1. you're on my radar, and 2. you need to figure out what it is that you need so you're not offending. In the same way that if you've got somebody who is a drug addict that they're getting the help that they need."

But then also telling that person, "You've been accused of this, and maybe it didn't happen. Maybe best-case-scenario is that this didn't happen. However, you've been put into a situation where you've been accused of this, and so what can we do to mitigate that in the future? And so, maybe you aren't babysitting your nieces and nephews. Or maybe when you play with kids you keep your clothes on," or whatever the case might be, but just to prevent accusations in the future.

I always recommend therapy to talk to somebody about it, because there might be something else going on that I don't know about and they're not willing to talk to me. Like I said, within the US, there just isn't someplace for somebody to go and say, "Hey, I know this is a trigger for me, and I don't want to act on it. What can I do?"

L: You want to have resources for people who experience some sort of attraction to children. Acknowledging the fact that that attraction isn't a choice - the molestation is a choice, but not the attraction -

K: Right.

L: And I am so grateful for the amount of empathy that you have, and the desire to have resources -

 (22:00) to (23:05)


L: - resources for people in those situations so that they can get help and hopefully interrupt the cycle of violence. Katie, we could just like, do good things for the world together! 

K: You know where to find me, so!

L: Everything you're doing - I'm just thinking about the people I've worked with who've worked with you, and your impact on the community and your wisdom, and it means a lot.

K: Well, I think it's important for them to know - for everyone to know -. Well, I mean, first off, we're all sexual beings from the time we're born - not gonna be a sexual person then we can just shut that off - but you need to know about what's okay, and you need to know about consent, and you need to know how things work. So, thank you for providing that service.

L: You're welcome.

K: Why aren't there more of you?? [they laugh] Good question, right?

L: Thank you for being on Sexplanations.

K: Thanks for having me.

L: You're welcome.

Both: Stay curious!

[outro]