Promising Practice Programs

Imaginif Pty Ltd

PO Box 995
Edge Hill
Queensland 4870

BITSS is a parent friendly, in-the-home, model of child sexual assault prevention. It is a play-based model that makes use of items that surround children in their daily life and that can act as positive triggers for remembering personal safety. The use of the acronym BITSS makes it easy for parents, workers and children to remember how to fit the 5 bits of protective behaviours together by classifying games and activities under the 5 BITSS headings: body ownership, intuition, touch, say no, and support network.

The BITSS of Protective Play workshops are 4 hours in duration and are offered to all people working with children and families. They are play based and designed to provide activities that can immediately be shared with parent and child clients to use in their own homes.

The practical outcomes achieved by attendance at the 4 hour workshop are:

1. Background and historical protective behaviour knowledge to inform future practice with (concepts),
2. Information, knowledge and articulation of the BITSS model of protective behaviours (concepts) that can be used in your next session with a family or child,
3. Thoughtful appreciation and ongoing demonstration of child protection as a community responsibility (value),
4. Some creative ideas to immediately encourage families to practice protective behaviours (skills), and
5. Skills in play you can immediately attach your knowledge to (skills and ability).

Each participant receives a 12 page, colour illustrated parent speak tutorial jam packed full of game and activity ideas - most of which utilise resources found in many homes (doors, windows, dinner plates, fences, maps, etc).

A theory-free variation of the workshop is offered to parents and has been reframed as Protective Play Parties.

The program has been run successfully with a number of Indigenous communities around Cape York Peninsula.

The BITSS model turns difficult concepts into realistic play examples that utilise everyday household items so that parents can easily incorporate BITSS play into daily routines in order that children's integration of protective behaviours is seamless and not state dependent.

The following selection of participant comments have been taken directly from post evaluation forms as specific examples:

"I have learnt creative ideas for encouraging families to immediately implement protective behaviours, such as using household items to teach their children about their boundaries or remember their various supports."

"I reflected upon the workshop everytime that I looked at a ceiling fan or looked through the street directory!"

"Being able to be more creative with using everyday things to encourage and promote protective behaviours."

"Its target group includes almost everyone and can be put into practice ASAP"

"Secret noises, chatterbitts, body defining boundary art."

The BITSS program has offered parent variations to the Protective Behaviour Program.

The Protective Behaviour Program was developed in USA but is widely accepted and used in Australia and the U.K.

The original Protective Behaviour Program was written around sexual abuse. Australia widened it to include all forms of community assaults and violence. The BITSS model addresses only child sexual assault and is designed to offer the skills to families to use in their homes on a daily basis.

Following a lengthy period of working with families and children the writer’s frustration levels at community infiltration of basic protective behaviour knowledge remained high. Content analysis of protective behaviour material and unstructured interviews with workers and community members supported the writers hypothesis that if people considered to be professional in the social services were ill informed around how to implement protective behaviour strategies then families and individuals would also remain at a loss of what and how to do little things to assist in keeping themselves safe.

The writer embarked on a family focused path of resource development. The original idea was to both create and make available a number of specific resources that were easy to obtain, affordable and met best practice guidelines for working with children. Throughout this journey, market research continually supported that workers and community parents were unable to identify specific elements of protective behaviour programs.

With this low level community infiltration in mind, the writer began to develop a model that would make it easy for workers and parents to remember how to fit protective behaviours together. Hence, a family friendly model of protective behaviour skilling was developed.

Sanderson, J (2004) Child-Focused Sexual Abuse Prevention Programs. How effective are they in preventing child abuse? Crime and Misconduct Commission, Research and Issues paper Series, No 5. June 2004.

Many of the tenets of the BITSS model were juxtaposed against the conclusions of the above paper. Specifically, the BITSS model addresses design and conceptual weaknesses along with targeting an all of community approach toward child protection.

Bayliss, M (2005), Parent Sense. A protective play tutorial. Imaginif:Cairns.

This parent resource makes up the core workshop for workers and the in-home protective play parties for parents and their supports. A reduced version of the tutorial will be printed in a national parenting magazine (Byronchild), summer 2006.

Bayliss, M (2006), Grand Parent Sense. A protective play tutorial. Imaginif:Cairns.
Printed with assistance from a community development grant from Cairns City Council.

The above tutorials can be purchased for $5.00 per copy from Imaginif Pty Ltd.

Bayliss, M (2005) Bitss of Caramel Marmalade on Toast. Imaginif:Cairns.

A children's chapter book that can be used as biblitherapy around body ownership and speaking up

"Chatterbitts", a protective behaviour play resource. Used for reinforcing the 5 BITSS elements and encouraging the development of emotional intelligence. Available on PDF file from Imaginif.

• internal
• written following attendance
• pre-test post-test

Workshop outcomes have, and will continue to be measured against participant pre, progressive and post evaluations.

Pre evaluations have supported a low level articulation of protective behaviour concepts, themes and strategies.

Post evaluations have supported a positive 100% retainment rate of the 5 BITSS elements.

Eighty percent of participants used creative protective behaviour play skills within the first week after the workshop.

It is hoped that a large scale evaluation will be conducted in the future, using feedback from up to 1000 participants.