Stop The Silence: Stop Child Sexual Abuse Inc. (A Department of the Institute on Violence, Abuse, and Trauma)

Stop the Silence® (formerly a free-standing non-profit) Stop the Silence®: Stop Child Sexual Abuse, Inc.) is a Department of the Institute on Violence, Abuse and Trauma committed to the prevention, treatment, and mitigation of child sexual abuse (CSA), other adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and related interpersonal trauma. CSA occurs in overwhelming numbers in the U.S. and throughout the world and causes enormous havoc to the child and adolescent victims and the adult survivors.

The Mission of the Stop the Silence® Department is to prevent, expose, and stop child sexual abuse as a part of other ACEs and help survivors heal worldwide. Our overarching goals are to: Prevent and expose CSA and ACEs; Promote healing of victims and survivors; Celebrate the lives of those healed; and, Underscore CSA/ACEs as a social justice and civil rights issues.

For 21 years, Stop the Silence® has provided comprehensive programming locally, nationally, and internationally toward the prevention and mitigation of CSA and ACEs through outreach (one-on-one, mass/social media), education, training, connecting the public to service providers through direct and electronic means, and policy development and reform to effect broad societal change. Click below to read about the innovative ways we are working to prevent, expose, and ultimately end child sexual abuse.

We provide help and resources through comprehensive programming with awareness, education/outreach, training, and policy development and reform. We work to address the relationships between childhood trauma and the broader issues of overall family and community violence, and violence within and between communities. Our focus underlines the importance of a shift in focus on positive development within our social complexes (e.g., the relationships between men, women, adults and children, cultural groups) to support peaceful - and to hinder violence-prone - relationships.

Founded by Pamela Pine, PhD, MPH, Stop the Silence® began in 2002 as a coalition of multi-ethnic and state groups that came together to comprehensively address child sexual abuse. Faced with a lack of funding and awareness on the part of the public and policymakers alike, Dr. Pine organized the Race to Stop the Silence®, which continued as an annual event from 2004-2013.

Pamela incorporated Stop the Silence® as a nonprofit organization in 2004 to collaboratively provide (e.g. with the Lamplighter Movement) comprehensive programming with research, media advocacy, training, community outreach and education, policy development, and support for direct services components. Pamela developed the Stop the Silence® comprehensive model used in the U.S and internationally.

As of January 1, 2021, Stop the Silence® continues its vital work as a Department of the Institute on Violence, Abuse and Trauma.