MANILA, Philippines – A website was launched Tuesday, September 19, to train public and private school teachers on the proper handling of child abuse cases reported to them by their students.

The Department of Education (DepEd) and the University of the Philippines (UP) Manila signed a memorandum of agreement to jointly implement the online teachers’ training program offered at the Safe Schools for Teens website. 

The website offered a course that aimed to increase the capacity of teachers, school administrators, and guidance counselors to appropriately respond when a student discloses being sexually abused – whether at home or in school.

The course focused on the 4Rs of child abuse prevention: Recognize, record, report, and refer.

The teacher, school administrator, or guidance counselor taking the course must finish its 5 modules before being issued a certificate of complication. (READ: DepEd combats child abuse in schools)

The Safe Schools for Teens website was piloted at the Manila High School and the Victorino Mapa High School two years ago. Now, DepEd and UP Manila are hoping the fully launched website will be able to train around 700,000 teachers.

“This is very important because this teaches the teachers on the proper referral of cases to the other professionals who are better equipped to manage cases of child abuse… With this training, they will realize that these cases of child abuse require a multi-sectoral response,” said DepEd Undersecretary Alberto Muyot.

The 2015 National Baseline Study on Violence Against Children shows that 3 out of 5 children were physically and psychologically abused and bullied. The same study says one in 5 children was sexually abused.  

“The study has shown that among all professionals, it is the teacher and the guidance counselor that the student will disclose [cases of child abuse],” said Dr Bernadette Madrid, child protection unit director at the Philippine General Hospital. 

Apart from the DepEd and UP Manila, the Safe Schools for Teens website’s program partners include UNICEF Philippines and the Child Protection Network. 

Teachers as 1st line of defense vs child abuse 

Luisa Reyes, head teacher for home economics at the Victorino Mapa High School, said the website has been helpful for them in the past two years.

She said prior to receiving training from the Safe Schools for Teens website, some teachers did not know what to do next when students tell them they were being sexually abused. 

“Dati ‘di na naipo-proseso nang mabuti. Pag nalaman ng teacher, hanggang doon lang. Whereas ngayon, dahil mas maganda ‘yung sinabi sa amin [doon sa website], ginagawa namin,” Reyes told Rappler.  (The reports were not processed properly before. When a teacher finds out about it, it stops there. Whereas now, it’s better because we’re doing what we’ve learned from the website.)

According to Education Secretary Leonor Briones, it was important that teachers were given the proper training on child abuse intervention.  

“They’re the first line of defense in the schools because they are the  first ones to notice if there are signs of sexual abuse. And if something happened – because sometimes you start with so-called mild sexual abuse – then it leads to much more serious serious activities. Then the teacher is the first line of [defense]. The teacher will report to the principal and so on until it reaches us,” said Briones.

The education secretary said this would allow DepEd to investigate and respond to reported cases of child abuse faster. – Rappler.com