Interviewed by In Session host, Christi Paul, Angela answers the tough questions surrounding the issues of child sexual abuse.

Video Transcript:

Reporter: All of the accusers in this case, meanwhile, met the defendant through his organization; The Second Mile.

And many of you, I know, have your children enrolled in similar programs. And you're probably thinking, especially after watching this, “how on earth do I monitor my kids? And know that they're OK? And what are the signs that I need to be watching for if my child is being abused?”

Well, Angela Williams is here to help us answer this question. She's the founder and CEO of Voice Today, which promotes education for adults, for us, on how to break the cycle and the silence.

Angela suffered 14 years apparently of sexual and physical abuse. And tell me your story, first of all. Why is this such a, you know, why is this on your heart?

Angela Williams: I'm very passionate about saving the next generation of children because I suffered at the hands of my stepfather. My sexual abuse started at three.

I was threatened that my mother would be harmed if I ever told. So, like so many victims, they're silenced with threats. So, I just kept it secret for 14 years. And finally broke my silence with a suicide attempt.

So, really didn't tell anybody, just could not take it any longer. And praise God, He had a different plan. But so many, just turned to suicide or self-destructive behaviors as a result.

Reporter: Did your mother have any indication? I mean, did she know on any level, or suspect anything?

Angela Williams: She didn't. And so often that's the case. We see that the perpetrators are very cunning. They're very manipulative. And you don't want to think the worst of people.

Reporter: Were you groomed necessarily? I mean, obviously, because you were living in the same house with him. There was an access there that there may not be, you know, for other adults and parents.

As we're talking about, especially in this case, with The Second Mile. And that being the avenue, allegedly, for this alleged, these alleged crimes.

Angela Williams: There was so much physical abuse that my grooming took place in just total submission. I was powerless, and just lived in such fear.

Reporter: Was your mother being abused too?

Angela Williams: Yes, it was a domestically challenging home.

Reporter: That’s a very politically correct way of saying, it was a domestically challenged home.

Angela Williams: Environment.

Reporter: Yeah, so you didn't tell anybody out of fear. I think a lot of people have a hard time understanding why children don't come forward. I mean, they know on some level. They get it on some level, why they don't say it. But, can you give us a real sense of why? Particularly in this case.

And even today, we have two new victims. Alleged victims, who've come out now. They can't be part of this trial, because the jury is already in deliberations. But just last night, two new alleged victims coming out. One of them being Jerry Sandusky 's adopted son.

Why do they not say something sooner?

Angela Williams: Well Christi, I actually wrote my book just to tell that story. Just so the little girl could tell the story, and people could understand why children stay silent. They are so afraid, and they are so ashamed. And they really feel so isolated. They feel like, “I'm the only one that this is happening to, in the whole wide world”. So, they feel very lonely in their abuse.

Voice Today really wants to teach adults how to ask children those tough questions. “Has anyone ever touched your private parts? Are you uncomfortable? Is anyone make you feel uncomfortable?”

We've heard testimony about the Tickle Monster. And I'm sure there's a place that the tickling was fun, and then it crossed the line. It crossed a boundary.

So, we're not teaching children about personal power, about their personal boundaries, about respect of their bodies, and their personal space. We teach children to respect authority, all authority.

So, there's some very valuable lessons here. And children are in so much pain. This is a profound hurt, that lasts a lifetime. That you just don't erase from your memory.

So, a child carries a lot of the guilt. The perpetrators often make the child think they were consensual in the act, that they bore some responsibility and children really don't understand that they were powerless.

It happens once, it happens twice, you don't tell so now you're gonna go tell. And the perpetrators telling you, “Well you must have liked it, you didn't tell anybody” or “This is our secret, we can't ever tell”. And that's another valuable lesson that we teach adults is you have to have a no secrets policy in your home, you can tell me anything, everything.

Reporter: Yeah, yeah. In our house we say there are no secrets. There are surprises. If, you know, we're gonna get ready to surprise somebody with something, but there are no secrets. We do not keep secrets.

What else do you say? Or how can you educate us on verbiage we can use with our kids? On what we can say to them, so they won't be afraid to come to us? Especially if they're in a situation where, like you said, you're threatened with this person… threatening their loved ones. You know, the child's loved ones?

How do you get through to a kid and say, “that's not gonna happen”?

Angela Williams: So often children will act out nonverbally, behaviorally. So, we have to, we have to look at those changes in behavior. We have actually produced a program called Tough Talk to Tender Hearts. And that is to coach parents on what do you say, when. How do you prevent, predict and prevent child sexual abuse.

I believe today we have some graphics we were going to go over our power of prevention points.

Reporter: Yes

Angela Williams: So, I can run through those with you.

Reporter: Let's go. We have the first five here.

Angela Williams: We really want to monitor one-on-one interaction between an adult and a child. We inadvertently put our children in dangerous situations. We put them behind closed doors for maybe music lessons. We put them on with a babysitter.

We need to drop in unexpectedly. We need to look at the child and get on their level and ask how the visit was. See if they can recount. And we need to pay very close attention to their eye contact, and their behavior, their body language that they're giving.

Reporter: And I know we need to teach a child that any sexual behavior between that child and an adult…

Angela Williams: …is a crime.

Reporter: Is a crime, and that it's wrong.

And teach them about personal boundaries and empowerment.

Angela Williams: Yeah

Reporter: Here's my question, and I've thought about this when I talked to my kids about this, because I do talk to them about this. If they are approached by somebody or somebody tries to do something to them and they say no, what if that person gets angry and harms them even more?

How do we ensure that they can stand up for themselves without putting themselves in danger?

Angela Williams: We teach a plan of protection. And we, as mothers, want to teach our children how to drop and roll out of a fire. How to look both ways when we cross the street. So, we want to teach our children a plan of protection. So they know immediately what to do when they're in that situation, when they're in that risky situation.

And what we teach is practice with your child that guttural “NO”. Make it a loud scream Make it a game when you're on the way to Wendy's. Just scream that “NO”. Run out of the situation immediately.

If they have to use their “NO” voice, they have to be running. They have to not let the perpetrator manipulate them, talk them in or out of what they perceived happened. And then, they have to tell the first person they see. And they have to tell until someone believes them, because the first person may meet that disclosure with denial.

Reporter: Oh, that’s good.

Angela Williams: So we've got to keep telling. Let's say that a 15 year old is in the basement with a six year old playing video games, and that 15 year old acts out on that six year old. If he runs upstairs and the mother's cooking dinner, the first response that mother was, “he didn't mean it”, or “that's not what he did”. So that child could, inadvertently, be just shut up for life.

So, they have to keep telling, tell more than one person. Tell your parents, tell your counselor, tell your pastor, tell your pediatrician. Tell more than one person. And our prayer is that there will be an advocate in that child's life that will stand up with courage against that disclosure.

Reporter: I know you say we need to tell them that we will always believe and protect them. And that, certainly is true. How do we instill, in a child, that we are their advocate? That we WILL be there, that they WILL protect them?

Angela Williams: Well, I think it's an ongoing conversation that has to start very young with a child. All, everything that we teach, our society wants to have one talk at puberty and it's too late about the conversation of sexual abuse. I think if it starts early and that you instill that your child can trust you, and that you even have some…

We, and Voice Today, we teach some practices. That you can have a plan. We are producing characters and dolls and puppets and one is a pillow puppet that we can actually teach the child, “lay that on my pillow if you need me to come to you, and you have something to tell me” and know.

So, we put some plans in place, so the child doesn't have to worry about, “how can I do this, what do I do?” We have a plan of action, that if a child is questioning a touch or is uncomfortable around someone, they don't have to just wait for just the right moment to talk to mom and dad. They can go put the pillow puppet on the moms pillow, and mom knows “I need to go pay some very specific attention to my child and see what's going on.”

Reporter: And how…last question because we're running out of time, I'm sorry to say. I could talk about this all day…but how early do we start the conversation?

Angela Williams: We start as early as the child could communicate. At two years old, we start naming their anatomical parts. Maybe at bath time. Making sure that they understand where their body parts are. That they're private and no one is to touch them. Except, maybe when we go to the doctor. And they have to have permission from mommy and daddy to touch your private parts, from for two people.

You know there are just some safeguards we need to be putting in place, but start those conversations early. Find teachable moments. Layer those conversations. And that's what Tough Talk to Tender Hearts is about. And they can find our pop points on Voicetoday.org.

Reporter: I was gonna ask you for the website. Show us your book again.

Angela Williams: This is my book, From Sorrows to Sapphires, this will really help a survivor heal. Know that you're not alone. We also have healing programs at Voice Today. And would love to help a survivor heal in community. Terrible Things Happened to Me, Tom Scales is our executive director and this is his story. He is a male survivor, so he can, if there's any male survivors listening, they can reach out. And we have Pathway to Healing, which is our program to help survivors to heal. But Voice Today really is working so hard on awareness prevention and healing for child sexual abuse and a movement to bring this issue into the public arena.

Reporter: Angela, thank you so much.

Angela Williams: Thank you Christi, it has been a pleasure. Thank you.

Reporter: You have taught us so much and with all this access, we know that you all have a place to go, and so do I, to learn more. So thank you for having courage to tell this story and make it into a whole program to help other people.

Angela Williams: Very grateful for the opportunity for prevention to be amplified.

Reporter: Alrighty, thank you Angela, so much.