NJ Child Assault Prevention

The Child Assault Prevention (CAP) Project originated in 1978, in Columbus, Ohio, as a project of Women Against Rape (WAR). At the time the organization was responding to a plea by parents and staff to a parochial school in which a second grader had been raped. Offering emotional support and empowering prevention information, the staff at WAR developed the original Child Assault Prevention (CAP) curriculum. In 1984, Ms. Magazine published an article about the successes of the CAP program. The following is a true situation that was featured in the article:

Twelve-year-old Tanya and her eight-year-old brother Marcus were walking home from school together. Two adolescent boys attacked them and tried to drag Tanya off the sidewalk and into a yard. Without hesitation, both kids started shouting a deep, guttural self-defense yell while Tanya kicked and fought to get loose. The young attackers ran away.

Tanya and Marcus escaped harm because they had participated in a Child Assault Prevention (CAP) workshop in Columbus, Ohio, the summer before. Though shaken by the attempted assault, they had learned real skills that changed the outcome of a dangerous situation just as clearly as teaching children how to cross streets prevents many pedestrian accidents. Tanya and Marcus were the first children we heard about who had actually used the information we taught to prevent assault. They were not the last. Since that incident CAP success stories have become commonplace and have proved CAP's effectiveness to prevent abuse against children. Today, CAP has trained facilitators in 22 states and 16 countries and is considered to be one of the most innovative and comprehensive prevention programs in the world today. It is presently implemented nationally and internationally by local projects and disseminated by the International Center for Assault Prevention (www.internationalcap.org).

In 1985, Pat Stanislaski, a former educator, introduced CAP to New Jersey and was selected as the Executive Director of NJ CAP. As a result of her tenacity and the support of the Department of Human Services, New Jersey became the first state in the country to adopt CAP as its primary prevention program statewide. The NJ Department of Human Services provided funding for the New Jersey CAP (NJ CAP) Project to be administered by the Educational Information & Resource Center (EIRC) located in Mullica Hill, NJ. The EIRC, a public agency specializing in education-related programs and services for parents, schools, communities, and nonprofit organizations was the perfect host for the CAP program. CAP local offices were established in all 21 counties of the state with an additional office in the city of Newark.

New Jersey CAP demonstrated how local community based CAP programs supported by statewide government can be tremendously effective. In 1993, the NJ CAP project at EIRC was awarded the copyright of the CAPŠ program and asked to be the new site of the International CAP Center because of its outstanding record of statewide governmental and community support. Pat retired from CAP in June, 2006 leaving the leadership of NJ CAP to Jeannette Collins, Director of Curricula and Cheryl Mojta, Director of Operations. Both women had been associated with CAP for over 20 years.

Since 1985, NJ CAP has trained over two and half million children and over 250,000 parents and school staff. New Jersey is the only state in the country to offer Child Assault Prevention training statewide. NJ CAP has received national and international recognition as a "model state program" in child assault prevention education.

HISTORY NJCAP.pdf