The Links Between Sexual Abuse Severity, Running Away, and Parental Connectedness Among Youth at a Hospital-Based Child Advocacy Center
Abstract Purpose Runaway adolescents often have strained relationships with their parents. Given parental support is an important protective resource for traumatized young people, understanding differences in support within parent–adolescent relationships could aid in designing more effective interventions. We hypothesized (1) runaway adolescents seen at a Child Advocacy Center (CAC) would have poorer parental relationships than […]
Interventions that Foster Healing Among Sexually Exploited Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review
Abstract Sexual exploitation of children and adolescents is a pressing, yet largely under-recognized form of child abuse. The goals of this review were to identify interventions that have been implemented with sexually exploited children and adolescents and to better understand their effectiveness for fostering healing with this population. Our systematic search generated 4,358 publications of […]
Boys are not exempt: Sexual exploitation of adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa
Abstract Research on youth sexual exploitation in Africa has largely neglected the experiences of exploited boys. To date, much of the research in sub-Saharan Africa continues to consider boys mainly as exploiters but not as exploited. Using the only publicly available population-based surveys from the National Survey of Adolescents, conducted in four sub-Saharan African countries […]
Sexually Exploited Boys: What We Know and What We Don’t
Research and services focused on sexually exploited children and adolescents often target girls and leave out boys. However, research shows that boys often report similar rates of sexual exploitation as girls (10, 19, 27). This suggests that boys may experience more sexual exploitation than is commonly realized, while also facing greater barriers to what few […]
A systematic review of the state of the literature on sexually exploited boys internationally
Abstract This systematic review assessed the current state of the literature on sexually exploited boys internationally. We aimed to describe what is known about sexual exploitation of boys, identify gaps in the literature, provide implications for practice, and make recommendations for future research. Multiple database searches were conducted using a combination of controlled vocabulary and […]
Raven’s Children IV: Aboriginal youth health in BC
Since 1998 McCreary has worked in partnership with Aboriginal researchers and community Elders, youth, and adults to produce a specific report about the health of Aboriginal youth who complete the BC AHS. This is the fourth Raven’s Children report and is an in-depth look at the health of youth who identified as Aboriginal on the […]
Assessing exploitation experiences of adolescent girls and boys seen at a Child Advocacy Center
Abstract The primary aim of this study was to describe the abuse experiences of sexually exploited runaway adolescents seen at a Child Advocacy Center (N = 62). We also sought to identify risk behaviors, attributes of resiliency, laboratory results for sexually transmitted infection (STI) screens, and genital injuries from colposcopic exams. We used retrospective mixed-methods with in-depth […]
How many is too many for BC youth? Alcohol use and associated harms
Although the legal drinking age in British Columbia is 19 years, many youth begin to experiment with alcohol before this age. Studies have shown that alcohol consumption by youth under the age of 19 is associated with an increased likelihood of involvement in health risks, such as a vehicle crash or a sexual or physical […]
Our communities, our youth: The health of homeless and street-involved youth in BC
Homeless and street-involved youth are among the most vulnerable populations in Canada and experience significant health inequities. The 2014 Homeless and Street-Involved Youth Survey (HSIYS) captured information from youth living in 13 diverse communities across British Columbia between October 2014 and January 2015. A total of 689 youth (aged 12–19 years) participated, from which we […]
