Schools to Teach Children to Resist Exploitation

The Orange Unified School District is one of five selected nationwide for a program intended to teach young children how to protect themselves against exploitation, abuse and abduction without alarming them, officials announced Thursday.

The program, “Kids and Company: Together for Safety,” was developed by the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children and the Adam Walsh Child Resource Center, founded by John Walsh, whose 6-year-old son, Adam, was abducted from a Florida shopping mall and killed in 1981.

The Adam Walsh Center in Tustin will conduct one of the “Kids and Company” pilot projects in the Orange Unified School District beginning after Jan. 1, said Susan Davidson, executive director of the Tustin center.

“It’s an excellent program developed by people in education, child development and child safety--people with a lot of training on how kids learn,” Davidson said.

Digital Equipment Corp. contributed more than $300,000 to develop the program, and the American Legion Foundation gave the Walsh organization $50,000 to publish five copies of the program plan for use in pilot projects across the country.

In addition to Orange Unified, the program will begin in school districts in Rochester, N.Y., Marlboro, Mass., Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Nashua, N.H.

Davidson said the program uses different emphases and approaches for children at each grade level. It is also designed so certain topics may be omitted if instructors or parents believe the information is too delicate for children.

“It’s a comprehensive program . . . so if one school is uncomfortable dealing with molestation, there is enough to do with self-esteem” to give the children a sense of what is right and wrong, Davidson said.

Topics addressed include abduction by parents and by strangers, molestation, self-esteem and playground bullies. The program also includes materials for children to take home to their parents so they know what their children are learning and can discuss it with them.

“This way, the parents can be reinforcing the program at home, and as a new issue comes up there is always someplace the children can go. They can say, ‘We’ve talked about the playground bully,’ ” Davidson said.