Supporting Adults in Preventing Harmful Sexual Behavior Among Children and Teens: Addressing the “Messy Middle”
Press Pause is a sexual abuse prevention organization in Aotearoa New Zealand. Its mission is to help adults understand, recognize, and respond to young people’s concerning sexual behaviors. Press Pause provides education on healthy boundaries, online behavior, pornography, sexual images and language, and unwanted sexual touch. The organization uses a traffic-light metaphor to distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable behaviors, with orange representing “the messy middle”—those behaviors where early, thoughtful intervention has the greatest chance of preventing escalation into harmful sexual behavior.
In this webinar hosted by Safer Society, Rebekah Fraser and Nikki Friar share how their work at Press Pause uses a structured approach to address this “messy middle,” offering ideas for practitioners seeking to prevent harm.
