PRESS RELEASE For immediate release Contact: Yvonne M. McCormack Talk of the Town PR 717-659-1411 yvonne@talkofthetownpr.com www.talkofthetownpr.

com JustTell receives a special invitation to participate in the Penn State University Conference on Child Sexual Abuse New York, NY Sept. 26, 2012 JustTell (www.justtell.org), a New York City based non -profit with a nationwide initiative, is pleased to announce that they will be p articipating in the Penn State Child Sexual Abuse Conference in October 2012. Th e goals of the conference are to raise awareness, educate, energize, and empower all of us to move forward to better protect children. JustTell was asked to join an elite group of organizations from all over the cou ntry that offer solutions for child sexual abuse. Just Tell was hand selected be cause of their one-of-a-kind mission, which encourages children to break the sil ence and speak out about sexual abuse. Our founder, Vivian Farmery, says, Our focus is to continually increase the percent age of youth who disclose sexual abuse when it occurs. This essential element ha s been missing in society and needs to be our number one priority if we are to i mprove upon how this issue has been handled in the past. Information and social support are crucial factors in a child s ability and willingness to disclose sexual abuse. Prompt disclosure is second only to prevention in the goal of protecting children from abusers. Through consultation and collaboration with social workers, pediatricians, polic e, psychologists and other skilled professionals in the field of child abuse det ection, JustTell has developed a research-based approach to addressing sexual ab use. The goal of JustTell is to reach out to anyone between the ages 8 and 17 ye ars old who has been sexually abused in order to convey, in age-appropriate lang uage that they are not alone, they are not to blame for the abuse and should fee l no guilt or shame, and then to assist then in choosing a trustworthy adult in their life and telling that adult about the sexual abuse. Over 80% of youth who are sexually abused are abused by an adult whom they know and have trusted. Just Tell empowers young adults who are sexually abused by countering the barriers to disclosure that abusers try to instill. Because teens listen to the advice of their peers more than that of adults, yout h are asked to participate in every aspect of the design and delivery of the mes sages of JustTell. Teens designed everything from JustTell s graphics to what we cal l Street Teams . These teen-centric teams are made up of volunteers who go out into the ir communities and hand out JustTell s information to their peers. Through social me dia and the outreach groups, teens serve as the primary deliverers of the JustTe ll s message. In addition, each summer a team from JustTell travels with the Vans Wa rped Tour, reaching tens of thousands of teens who attend the nationwide shows e ach summer. Simply teaching youth about sexual abuse is not enough. We need to give children a safe haven where they can read about situations like theirs to understand tha t they are not alone, and not to blame, and why they need to tell someone. Since sexual abuse among children is largely a silent and witness-free crime, detecti on can often be difficult, therefore disclosure is critically important for inve stigative and treatment purposes. JustTell honestly and openly addresses all of the factors that make it difficult for a young person to tell.

The long-term desired outcome of JustTell is to increase the disclosure rate of sexual abuse and to change the way this generation of youth perceive, and respon d to, childhood sexual abuse. All initiatives are designed to generate awareness , and to provide compassionate, age-appropriate guidance to prepare children who are being sexually abused with the means to begin a conversation with a trustwo rthy adult. About our Founder: Vivian Farmery, MSW is a social worker with over 25 years experience working wit h the issue of childhood sexual abuse. Vivian has immersed herself in direct ser vice, education, program planning, and policy change to assist survivors of chil dhood sexual abuse. Vivian designed and implemented the first Mental Health Prog ram for a Federal Head Start center and trained numerous Head Start Centers in a buse detection and reporting policies. She taught for ten years as a professor o f social work at the New York University, Adelphi and Fordham Graduate Schools o f Social Work and has recently returned to Fordham where she is teaching new soc ial workers to work with adolescents. Recognized for her advocacy on behalf of children, she was appointed by two successive Manhattan Borough Presidents to se rve on the New York City Panel for Educational Policy. For more information, please email yvonne@talkofthetownpr.com, call 717-659-1411 , visit www.talkofthetownpr.com or write Talk of the Town PR, 100 Melrose Ave, S uite 206, Greenwich, CT 06830