Press Releases

Futures Group Supports Race to Stop Child Sexual Abuse

Washington, D.C., April 7, 2005—The second annual National Race to Stop the Silence will be held on Sunday, April 10, 2005, in Washington, D.C. Futures Group, a Constella company, is a sponsor of the race, which increases awareness of child sexual abuse.

The race is organized by Stop the Silence, a non-profit organization that supports programs for the prevention and treatment of child sexual abuse. Two local organizations active in this field, Safe Shores—the D.C. Children’s Advocacy Center, and the Virginia chapter of Childhelp USA, are the beneficiaries of funds raised by the race this year.

The race will start from Freedom Plaza at 13th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue at 9:00 a.m. It will feature an 8K run, a 5K run/walk, a 1K fun run for kids, awareness-raising activities for adolescents and adults, and entertainment, including a clown and a seven-foot tall ant for children. In short, the race will be fun for the whole family. Get there early: registration begins at 7:00 a.m., and activities start at 7:30 a.m. For more information or to register, visit www.stopcsa.org.

Child sexual abuse (CSA) has reached epidemic proportions, and it affects everyone: children, adult survivors, and society as a whole. In the United States, by most estimates, one in three women and one in six men experience sexual abuse as children. Tens of billions of dollars are spent annually on the aftermath of CSA, including the costs of  doctors, therapists, social service workers, police, courts, and others. 

Sexual violence starts very early in life. According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, a part of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), among children confirmed by child protective service agencies as being maltreated, at least 10 percent were sexually abused. More than half of all rapes of women occur before age 18, and 22 percent of these rapes occur before age 12.

“These young victims are at high risk for an array of subsequent problems, including depression, suicide, substance abuse, and engaging in violent behaviors themselves,” says David Horowitz, a Constella Group employee and public health advisor for the National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center, a partnership of the CDC and other federal agencies. Additionally, survivors of child sexual abuse are vastly over represented among certain populations, such as prostitutes, people incarcerated for homicide and other crimes, teen moms, and runaways.

Yet, according to Dr. Pamela Pine, founder of Stop the Silence, the race director, and health communication director at Futures Group, “Only one in 10 children ever report the abuse, some adults never report it if told about the abuse of a child, and many true cases are not established due to legal or court processes. Raising awareness and preventing and treating CSA are crucial to the health of our society.”

About Constella Group, LLC
Constella Group is a leading provider of professional health services worldwide, dedicated to enhancing human health around the world, every day. Constella's three business units—Health Sciences, Futures Group and Clinical Informatics—create and provide health intelligence to help industry and government clients identify and solve critical problems affecting human health. Headquartered in Durham, N.C., the company has approximately 1,100 employees with offices in 35 countries throughout the world.