Program Description
Have you wondered how incest can occur, often with other members of the family having no clue? Learn how the grooming, the secrecy, and the accommodation to the incest happen. There is a cycle of incest that perpetuates the dynamics from one generation to the next. What are some of the common characteristics of the offender? The nonoffending parent? The victim child? The family system itself? And how do we begin to heal the wounds of incest?
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this program, participants should be able to:
1.
Identify some of the characteristics of the offender, the non-offending parent, the victim child and of the family system where incest occurs;
2.
Identify and recognize in survivors Suzanne Sgori’s stages of child sexual abuse;
3.
Describe the child sexual abuse accommodation syndrome and how it can be used in the court process;
4.
Name some of the risk and protective factors present in victims of incest and which ones contribute to resiliency;
5.
List the criteria to be used when making decisions about reunification of the offender with family members.
Target Audience
Appropriate for mental health practitioners, social workers, law enforcement, educators, school counselors, victim advocates, and guardian ad litem
Contact Hours
6.0 hours
Program Agenda
Available upon request
Faculty
Kathy Johnson, MS was a Clinical Assistant Professor at the School or Social Work,
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Jordan Institute for Families, Family and
Children’s Resource Program where she develops curricula and trains child welfare workers statewide. Ms. Johnson has experience as a teacher for the hearing impaired and as a child protective services and adult protective services investigator. She conducted abuse and neglect investigations in child care statewide; worked as both an adult and CPS policy consultant for the NC Division of Social Services; and was a criminal justice expert and instructor for the NC State Bureau of Investigations, where she trained SBI special agents and other law enforcement officers regarding investigations and forensic interviewing in child sexual abuse and child pornography cases. Ms. Johnson is a certified criminal justice instructor; a certified suicide intervention instructor; past chair

of the Intentional Death Committee, NC Child Fatality Task Force; past president of the
North Carolina Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. She served on the
American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children Board of Directors. Presently, she is on the Board of Directors for the Masonic Home for Children at Oxford and on the
Board of Directors for the Yahve Jire Children’s Foundation in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.