Paul DiLorenzo, a member of the College of Public Health’s Board of Visitors and Temple master of social work graduate, has co-edited a new book, Child Sexual Abuse: Practical Approaches to Prevention and Intervention, intended as a resource for therapists, pediatricians, caseworkers, victim advocates, and law enforcement professionals. DiLorenzo, a child welfare expert who has served as part-time faculty member in the School of Social Work, collaborated on the book with Teresa Huizar, chief executive officer of Washington, D.C.-based National Children’s Alliance. Julia Kobulsky, an assistant professor in the School of Social Work who specializes in the study of child maltreatment, contributed a chapter with the assistance of MSW student Jen Rock.
The book is a comprehensive overview with chapters by a range of specialists in the field.
“It’s multidisciplinary and gave us a chance to bring in varied voices and fresh perspectives,” DiLorenzo says. “Julia has expertise in a topic we wanted to cover, recurrence of abuse, where kids come back into the system again after an earlier report.” Produced as a project for the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA), where DiLorenzo is a fellow, the book was released at the 2023 CWLA national conference in late April.
“The number one goal of child welfare is to keep children safe, and that means preventing them from being re-victimized. Unfortunately, the number one predictor for being victimized is having previously been victimized,” explains Kobulsky, who works on the issue with the Philadelphia Children's Alliance. Her chapter reviews existing prevention strategies and maps future directions for the prevention of recurrence.
“Paul and Teresa are both real leaders in the field, and this volume helps us move our thinking forward on child sexual abuse prevention,” she says. “We know child sexual abuse is so harmful to health and development. But we have had some gains, some reductions in child sexual abuse. I think that makes this book really timely, so we can recharge our efforts to continue to reduce and eliminate child sexual abuse.”
Aside from serving as a senior fellow at the Child Welfare League, DiLorenzo is executive director of the Salem Health and Wellness Foundation, an independent consultant and child welfare subject matter expert with over 40 years of experience. He was the director of children's policy for the City of Philadelphia and spent 13 years as a senior director at Casey Family Programs. Having begun his career as a caseworker, DiLorenzo is a subject matter expert for public and private child welfare agencies that are developing and implementing child abuse and family crisis prevention programs.