you're watching LM CC your community TV [Music] hello and welcome to talking points I'm Kay Erickson with the League of Women Voters of south tanka and today we're talking about empowering young people of all ages to recognize prevent and talk about abuse now while we know our communities out in the western suburbs are generally safe we also know that physical and sexual assault and abuse can happen anywhere with me today is peg board president of the South Tonka League of Women Voters and together we're going to be talking with Heidi Nam and who is the executive director of the superhero Kids Foundation which works to get a program developed by the not-me organization into schools and other organizations welcome peg welcome Heidi thank you for being here let's start by talking about the statistics around abuse which I help us I think understand why this training program is so important can you talk about that Heidi about the number of kids that are actually abused yeah definitely the statistics are alarming and most people aren't aware that one in five kids all across America are going to experience an assault or abuse before they're 18 years old so that's that's four to five kids per classroom all across America and 90% of those assaults or abuse will be by people that they know and most of the time we've spent talking about stranger awareness and stranger danger but that's only 10 percent of the assaults so we've also learned that those assaults can cause great vulnerabilities in kids one of them being that they become traffic victims over 93% of trafficked victims had an assault in their elementary years and they never told anybody about it can you afford go any further can you explain a little bit about trafficking and what that looks like right so human trafficking is when a boy or a girl I mean could be very young the average age of human traffic victims is 12 years old but when a person becomes vulnerable to somebody who might try to get close to them and exploit them and them to provide sexual services to people who are willing to pay for those services and Minnesota is the thirteenth hub in the nation for human traffic victims which is another reason reason why Minnesota rotary has made it an initiative to become a role model for the rest of United States in combating that so we talk about prevention in the earliest forms to try to create a less vulnerable demographic of kids who know how to become less vulnerable and the statistics around that are pretty alarming to about ninety first over ninety percent of traffic victims had an assault in their elementary years yeah and didn't tell anyone didn't tell anyone that's 90 percent I mean that is that's a lot of kids right people is that because it was it was with some someone that they know and that they're you know either told not to tell or afraid to tell or there's so many reasons that kids don't tell and there's so many reasons that adults don't tell when we see that in the news all the time but with kids it's even trickier because they don't tell because either they like this person or other people like this person or they're ashamed or embarrassed or they're afraid that something might be taken away because this person is maybe giving them gifts or toys or money clothes depending on the age so there's there can be payback and they don't want to give up those things or maybe they think that no one's going to believe a child if they tell because sometimes kids may go tell one person and if that person doesn't believe them or is trying to protect somebody else they stop telling so part of the programs that you'll hear when we talk about is we encourage kids to tell more than one person so in a bigger perspective we go what are the consequences for these young people yeah you know relative to their growing up years and how how these assaults you know affect them you know in all kinds of different ways and could you just talk about that yeah the consequence the consequences can just really vary and become more extreme depending on how prolonged it is the assaults are happening so the consequences can range from emotional disorders depression anxiety fear of adults what do people want from me distrust maybe they'll start skipping school pretending they're sick they have academic challenges they can't perform in school well they start to have risky behaviors promiscuity substance abuse it could lead to more exploitation people trying to get things from them because they're less because they're more vulnerable maybe they'll drop out of school trafficking even suicide we see it run all the way up to you know mental health killing themselves and right so I think one of the things that the audience should know too is that that these assaults happen it doesn't matter what socioeconomic status you're in you know what race what ethnicity whatever that it you know it's pervasive it's prison it's pervasive definitely it's in every single school you know there are some pockets where there could be some more risky challenges where parents aren't home as much because they're having to work two jobs so you're having to leave kids with certain people for long periods of time and yeah so there there can be other challenges but across the board you know and one in five kids those are only the reported numbers that's only where they find evidence for those child assaults but most kids don't tell most adults don't tell so those numbers we think are really low and that's the Nutri statistic isn't it wasn't it one in seven prior to the five numbers coming yeah yeah and use some of the websites will will say different numbers but it all kind of comes back to the same format depending on who's during the research that's still such that's a health that's something that we can do something about it makes it more difficult for the schools I would think because they're dealing with all these behaviors that mm-hmm they need help changing right china or dressing right so heidi tell us a little bit about you i guess we've talked about in a statistics okay so tell us about you and how you got into superhero kids okay let's see well first off i'm a mom of two kids and i've lived in this area with our kids for the last 23 years and when my daughter my oldest got to middle school there was a lot of freedom that kids were starting to get and i wasn't comfortable with that so i went and I found some safety courses that when I was also at the time a Girl Scout leader of 21 girls so I thought let me find something we'd already tried a self-defense martial arts type thing but nobody remembered anything from that so I found uh not me training happening in a local private school for college bound girls and their moms and I called the founder al Horner and I said I'm really interested in bringing this to a group of my Girl Scouts and he said come observe participate check it out and when I left I was blown away and I said I have to get this to every every girl and mom that I possibly can so I went back to our school which is a Minnetonka School District and they ran they've been running the program for about five years now for that at that time I didn't realize that in the works was the superhero Kids program because so many adults that had been trained through the tsunami program we're asking for something for their kids so the founder al Horner looked up well what is a kids biggest threat here it was sexual assaults one in five kids and he couldn't find anything available so he set out to design something within five years working with a lot of different experts it was put together and I so I got to be around and it was first in development and talking to people about it and testing it with yeah so I'm just you know and anybody that sees the program says wow this is amazing this is everything we want our kids to know to be safe so I'm here and I'm hoping to spread the word about how we can get this to more kids now is that the work of the foundation is to spread the word and to get into the schools how does that work yeah the foundation is a non-profit 501c3 and our goal is to raise funds and give resources and grant pilots to schools so they can see what this is and the power of it and hopefully through that garner community support to help even pay for the programs because we have there are license trainers that go into the schools and most of our licensed teachers and they have to go through a certification so yeah well train the trainers are well trained oh definitely so the program really goes from preschool right preschool is do you train preschool kids or do you start all the way through adult adult yeah and then how does the the curriculum changes a little bit I'm assuming so the curriculum is really offered through that not me training and I guess maybe just to make that clear distinction superhero kids is the foundation and we offer grants for pilots for schools to get the curriculum offered by not me training and so it's just one of the places that we sponsor and support for prevention in schools but it's the one that is the greatest need and that people are asking for so the programs offered by them start with pre-k through third grade and there's another one fourth through sixth grade seventh through eighth grade and nine through twelve and then adult level so they're all they're all so different and they just meet people where they are in life you can call kindergarteners superhero kids but you can't say that to a fourth grader anymore you're not a superhero we learned that with a lot of testing in the schools and they want me to sit there hero anymore and they don't want to practice running in place like the kindergarteners do so so that we adjust and I can talk to you more about some of the points if you'd like before we do that it's time for a short break so we're going to come back we'll watch an act a video that will show us a little bit more about the program how it works and the man who developed a tell Horner yes so we'll come back in just a moment [Music] check out LM CC on Facebook be sure to LIKE and friend us so you can keep up with all the happenings or to watch one of your favorite videos welcome back to talking points I'm Kay Erickson with the League of Women Voters of south Tonka in this segment of the program peg d'abord president of the South Tonka League and I will continue our conversation with Heidi Naumann from the superhero kids foundation but before we do that we're going to show you a short video that shows a little bit about what the training program looks like and a little bit from the founder of the program al Horner when you're a child the world is open to you you are innocent you are excited about life you are full of energy we need this we need this our goal is for every child to learn how to become a superhero kid so that they can be safer when there is no responsible adult around to protect them we've created a 35-minute program that is fun not scary there's nothing in it that's scary the kids laugh and have fun all the way through superhero kids training changes kids lives by helping them recognize when they're in this room dassault sequence one out of seven children are abused I was one out of those seven I was abused by a person who we trust in and stayed at our house overnight it changed my life it took my innocence away it caused me a great deal of anxiety depression anger [Music] roomed assaults are salts done by people the child nose usually starts out with a behavior and a touch words and a touch that feel good groom dissolves happen when that migrates in a continuum over a period of time to a boundary violating touch it's very difficult for the child to talk about and it becomes this capsule of poison that eventually leaks if kids don't get the help they need these are lifelong consequences these are kids who have difficulty with self-esteem with mental health with substance use because they don't understand what's happened to them we boiled it down to two simple rules if either rule is being broken the child can recognize that and when they recognize that it's happening then we give them the proper response simple getaway and tell as a pediatrician in this community for the last 20 years I highly recommend the superhero Kids program for its empowerment and its prevention of abuse for kids if a rule is being broken and I recommend this everywhere everywhere any institution that deals with youth and I deal with youth on a daily basis I feel like this is extremely important I'm getting choked up here just talking so it's it's excellent I can't say it was this was extraordinary here in the room I I was blown away by the whole presentation think about what superhero kids could have done for me when I was abused to help me gain my voice to have the power to say no to tell someone [Music] you can break the cycle of pain by making sure superhero kids training reaches as many kids as possible you can help break the cycle [Music] you well thank you for bringing that video Heidi I think it really gave us an idea of how the curriculum works and how much fun it is for the kids and it was nice to see the man who developed it al Horner can you talk a little bit about the video and what we saw yeah so the man you saw in the video was Al Horner and he is the founder of the not-me training programs and the founder of the superhero kids programs and he's a retired former Navy SEAL officer he's 73 lives in Eden Prairie he's a local man he was asked by a friend who had a daughter going off to college back in 2004 can you teach my daughter and her friends some things before they go off learning from a Navy SEAL would help keep them safe so he said sure he taught him a few things couple weeks later that girl the daughter was potentially assaulted but she knew what to do and she got away and she wasn't raped so word-of-mouth traveled and you know over gosh I can't remember even the number now it's at over 50,000 women have been trained in the Twin Cities since then through corporations and high schools Medtronic Cargill General Mills Cargill just trained 400 women within the last year u.s. bank so a lot of the women that were attending the trainings were asking out what do you have for my kids and the time is thinking kids what do kids face and when he looked it up and found out one in five kids will face an assault before they're 18 he tried to find something and there was nothing that really focused on the fact that these kids will face this and what are they going to do about it so he said to develop something and he's a he's a very passionate guy about protecting people and as you could see in the video he so that was his wife Diane was also in the video working with the kids so they came up with a curriculum called superhero kids a way to make them feel safe and strong and empowered and it took five years in development working with healthcare experts teachers psychiatrists clergy parents to put this together in a way that was short fun and not scary and so you could probably see that from the video the kids really that was the pre-k through third grade program that you saw so one blip of it there's so many other age levels but really is a fun class for kids when that's the beauty of it I mean you've got the program for those younger kids but it also graduates onto older children and older teenagers in high school and adults yeah absolutely different in each one different at each grade level right you so the kids through third grade are called superheroes but by the time you get to fourth grade we realize they don't want to be called the superheroes anymore but you can say you can be your own hero and so the language gets changed and they really get an increased language of safety because you know 90% of assaults will be by people that the child knows or sort of knows but kids starting in fourth grade and up are getting a lot more freedom so they need to know a little bit more stranger awareness too so that's also brought into the program you know that's a time when Jacob Wetterling was abducted at an at gunpoint and so we address those things with the kids to know what to do when you're going to face situations like that so all the age levels really meet them where they are middle school there's a huge focus on safety by people you know and safety from strangers also including big pieces components on the internet and social media because grooming can happen through social media as well by people they know or sort of know or strangers who really are smart at getting to kids and trying to get closer I think the language they use this interesting helping kids identify their their own feelings about something because they often know when something doesn't feel right but you call it a young moment and when they're older it's a creep meter or something like that yeah that's about that yeah that's and that is that is really important it's actually the one of the most important things that it's taught from through adult the little kids it's called the feelings rule and it's teaching kids how to hone in to that gut feeling when something is not right when they're feeling uncomfortable and what does that mean to kindergarten through third graders they come up with the words what is uncomfortable mean it can mean weird scared unsure mad sad embarrassed creepy paranoid suspicious pain they come up with these great words and they all are words from comfortable so now that they have a word for it where are they feeling that in their body because those body feelings could be a warning signal that the feelings rule is being broken and it's not okay for people to make them feel uncomfortable it's so important for kids to be able to trust their gut yeah you know and not not hesitate when they have a feeling that is make them uncomfortable so what would a great way to teach kids right and if they're feeling uncomfortable and they can feel it that's a Yaak moment a moment and what are they going to do about that what they're gonna do is to get away from it and tell a trusted adult get away from the thing that makes them feel uncomfortable no matter what it is and talk to trusted adults and then also there's the swimsuit rule if a swimsuit rule is being broken that means there's no secrets about swimsuit areas about touching looking showing no secrets about that if if they feel like it's a secret or are being told it's a secret that's breaking a rule that's a yuck moment and the kids get away from yacht moments and go tell a trusted adult and that's got to be hard especially when they they often know the person that is in this feeling and to be able to have tools to get away and it's a appropriate way to get away and to tell be able to tell somebody know it's a big deal right and they're learning techniques to get away how do you get away from it because there's many ways they can get away but it's the right thing to do to go tell a trusted adult and it can be scary it can be there's a lot of reasons why kids don't want to tell it can be embarrassing maybe they like this person maybe they're trying to protect a person maybe they're being offered gifts or money or toys or treats or things and they don't want to give those things out maybe they think no one will believe a child because sometimes kids may go and tell a person and they won't get believed so they stop telling which is why we encourage kids to have a safety plan of here's all the trust of adults you came up with sometimes you need to tell all your trusted adults to make a yuck moment stop so how do you involve parents yeah understanding about you know a what their kids are learning through this program and then how to support their children so parents that's a unique thing about the programs too so we've been talking a lot about the K through three program but there's also four through six seven through eight and then the high school and adult the unique thing is that the parents are being educated at the same time as the kids in the school so parents have an opportunity to come to a preview and learn and discuss and ask questions and they're also given digitally a parent guide that will be sent to them by their school twice and in the parent guide are all kinds of resources facts about abuse grooming behaviors that should concern you what parents can do to protect a child and some of the things that are talked about in here and I'll just say a few because they are really important schools used to teach and parents used to teach good touch bad touch which is really confusing and so our recommendation and experts recommendation is to avoid saying things like that because there's a lot of shaming in it can a good person do a bad touch can a bad person do a good touch and do we want those things being called bad because later in life they're good they're supposed to be good and we're supposed to procreate so taking the shame away from that but using words like safe touch or safe touch or secret touch to kind of talk to kids also reinforcing rules that the kids will learn in the class the feelings rule the swim suit rule but giving kids the permission to protect their own bodies so if they don't want to kiss or hug somebody letting them know it's okay that you're in control of your space and if you don't want to that's fine maybe come up with something else you can do like a fist bump or give a peace sign pat on the back anything else so that we're not as adults forcing them to do things they're not comfortable with it sounds like the parent piece is really important because both the parents and the young people are using the same language to talk about an issue that's really difficult to talk about it almost opens the door for more conversation I would think there's so much more conversation and you know talking about body parts and just making sure that we are keeping the conversations open that they know you can ask me anything we can talk about anything nothing has to be a secret and helping kids come up with two trusted adults you know am i one of your trusted adults who else would you go to those are really important things dropping by child's activities unexpected we talked a little bit about social media but can you talk about the parents role in mind I mean how do they deal with the social media right hugely important so by the time we're getting into you know even fourth grade we're talking social media because those kids are on online games fortnight is a big one where you can play on the Iowa strangers and that just happened actually down in Lakeville where a child was being approached by strangers he they talked him into going into his Mohammed and getting it taking a picture of her credit card and sending to them because they were gonna give him three bucks inside the game he was eight years old so they're on these online games but also it seems like sixth grade it's kind of a rite of passage when kids are getting phones and they're certainly online with different things middle school we talk about social media a lot because grooming can happen so easily what does that look like so for instance if a person has a social media account and it's not snapchat or Instagram those are two of the most popular right now there's a whole list as a whole of really inappropriate chat rooms and things that kids go to that parents should be aware of I know parents should be in tune checking those phones constantly parents should have all the passwords and be checking for their safety and those are that should be a rule before paying for your phone we are in charge of your safety on this phone and that phone won't be in your bedroom with you it'll be we're checking up on it to make sure that you're safe Instagram those sites should be private so that strangers can't get to them it's really easy they're so manipulative it how they can easily get to somebody and start pretending that they're interested in them or grooming them and for some girls who are very vulnerable or feeling promiscuous for whatever reasons they're they're liking the fact that somebody's interested them and it could be a good-looking guy who wants to come and finally meet with them which happened on the north side of the Twin Cities they'll pretend to be boyfriend and girlfriend and fall in love and then they'll get to meet and things can happen from that point but it's mostly people they know or sort of know and they're all being at not all it's common that a lot of people are being asked for pictures it escalates into oh you know you're so handsome now take your basketball jersey off let me see your muscles same thing the other way boys and girls it escalates into sending inappropriate pictures and kids need to learn that's illegal that's child pornography if you're being if you're sending any swimsuit area pictures you're breaking the law if you're receiving any on your phone so we encourage that if you're receiving pictures like this you need to go to a trusted adult and talk about yeah I mean I have heard that you know there are some of these online programs that the kids are - that two or three clicks and you're into pornography that's on snapchat yes but going back to the sending pictures back and forth you the kids can be exploited that way - and coerced into other behaviors that are not really good for them right they can be courted especially if the closer that somebody gets to them and so one of the things that we that is taught in the class is when people are getting closer than normal you know there's a point when it's closer than normal and then this person will try to get you alone with them and that's where things can happen when you hear that one in five children will be assaulted by the age of 18 so what what are the ramifications going forward yeah so one of the last reports that I just read I'll put this in a dollar amount and then I'll go into the rest because I thought this was fascinating one of the last reports I saw was in the United States the best they could come up with was five hundred eighty five billion dollars a cost on society in Minnesota it's in the billions but it's really hard to kind of figure out a number but more importantly than that the consequences to society there's a huge cost with mental health issues with health care issues people become increasingly sick there's rates of obesity and health or heart disease the list is so long criminal justice welfare law enforcement incarceration people dropping out of school and so we have a less educated society who's bringing good things to our communities and when you're less educated you know that you're at more risk for more things you know you're you have a tougher time buying food for your family sometimes and finding a place to live that so and along with that the Center for Disease Control through the government the CDC and the Minnesota Department of Health is very focused on aces right now aces stands for adverse childhood experiences and that is when kids have an adverse childhood experience the more they have the more risk they can have for so many other things in their life and there's a list of nine different adverse experiences some of them on there are physical abuse or assault sexual assault if they live in a home or there's substance abuse going on or violence towards the mother or divorced parents there's just a list and there's different levels of stress but toxic stress you know toxic stress is the biggest ones when you're talking about an assault like this with one in five kids so schools are focused on counting aces with kids they get a point for each thing and the more aces that kids have or teens or even adults the more they're at risk for all those consequences that come down the road for them that can be anywhere from you know emotional disorders I think we talked about that which goes to how important the work is of the not-me training and the foundation for getting this program into the schools to try to prevent some of these things from happening to children and young people in the first place right prevention costs so much less than taking care of the trauma afterwards for the victim and society so if our audience is unsure of if this program is being offered in the schools how do they how how would they find out or how would they find out you know that they want this in their schools if this is something a school is interested in or anybody can go to the websites @ww superhero kids org and the websites will be up on the screen here too or not me training.com and contact someone through the contact page and questions can get answered information can be and so it could be schools it could be organizations it could be League of Women Voters absolutely yeah the superhero Kids Foundation is focused on schools because we really want all kids so that's where we focus on giving grants and resources the not-me training has all the trainers and the programs in the curriculum so either one can be contacted we work pretty closely together so it could be Girl Scout groups it could be League of Women Voters any private groups churches anyone can set up their own classes so getting the word out about the program is part of it or there are other things that all of us can do to to prevent assaults and abuse yeah I think number one everybody should get to a class and come and learn how to be safer and escape if you ever needed to so we'll help the League of Women Voters set up a class also just talking to their schools talking to your schools about these programs that that it is a thing it is available and if there is something we can do we should be doing it aces are preventable the Center for Disease Control stated that this week aces are preventable and these work we know that they're working we're hearing stories back so get us in touch with your schools talk to the people in your schools the right people that will want to make this happen and then really importantly too we need funding so that we can go out to the schools and offer grants and pilots and let them try it and see how it's working so donating to the foundation through other foundations or individual sponsors you can donate for your local community to all of their still I think 246 thousand kids in the metro area we're reaching we're at about 12,000 this year a pinch right we'd love to be able to reach more so funding is definitely a priority for us thank you both for being here today Heidi the work that you're doing to prevent these assaults is so important it's such a pervasive issue and the cost of society and the individuals are so huge it's just such important work we really appreciate your telling us about the program and what you're doing yeah well thank you for the opportunity you know we're trying to reach more and more kids 246 thousand kids here in the metro area and this year we'll be reaching 12,000 we would love to do more and so your your support for awareness and bringing it to your community is really impactful so I appreciate the chance to get to talk about this and try to reach more people that sounds like the key yeah thank you thank you so much programs like this are just part of league's mission for a hundred years the League of Women Voters has been encouraging people to get informed to get involved and to vote we hold public meetings to inform people about issues important to their communities we put on candidates meetings and provide information for voters we also study issues take positions in Lobby at the local state and national levels we're nonpartisan which means we don't support political parties or candidates our league is open to individuals 16 years of age and older and we serve the cities in southwest Hennepin County we invite you to join us you can find more about our league at lwv south tanka dot org finally I'd like to thank the Lake Minnetonka Communications Commission for the opportunity to present this program and to thank you for watching [Music] you