ABSTRACT
The Sexual Abuse Treatment Project (SATP) was the first sexual abuse treatment program in a child welfare setting in Canada, as well as the first comprehensive treatment resource for sexually abused children and their families in Toronto. The primary objective of the evaluation of the Sexual Abuse Treatment Project was to assess the feasibility of a specialized sexual abuse treatment program in a child welfare setting. Sexual abuse cases present complex legal and therapeutic problems that often involve law enforcement, medical, social work, mental health, and other professionals. The scarcity of evaluative information about sexual abuse programs meant that standardized measures weren’t available and measuring tools had to be created. Therapeutic process data, goal attainment scaling, interviews with child victims and parents, and comparative outcome data all showed strong support for the value of the SATP. Several obstacles were created by the small size of the SATP and by the therapeutic model.
