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What to do if you suspect your child was sexually abused

If a parent thinks their child might have been sexually abused, the most important thing to do is not ignore it.

 

You have to get help, you have to try to find answers and you need resources to be able to do that, and so the first thing is if you suspect abuse,  report it, report it to the criminal authorities, report it to the abuse hotline. There are professionals who can help understand and investigate what happened. It’s a crime and it should be reported. Now sometimes parents will  they say well I’m not sure. You report it and you investigate and find out. Let the professionals do that.

The second thing is, you should get legal help for your family and for your child. You have the right to understand your rights and have a civil attorney. You know and so one of the things that I do in many occasions is simply just provide advice. One of the things I do is to give information to families so they can make an informed decision. They need to know what they can do. They need to know what things are available to them. They need to know their alternatives. And so, I always say parents get information, come in and talk and find out what you can do, what alternatives are available to you.