By Neleh Kay, Brown University, Class of 2027
As a current college student, I’ve become acutely aware of how generative artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming education: my peers refer to ChatGPT by nickname, my professors constantly debate its place in classrooms, and my education studies courses consider its potential to address educational equity issues. But while I had thought at length about the academic implications of AI, I was not yet familiar with its nefarious use in child sexual abuse material (CSAM) production.

By Jayde Bennett Opening the Door to the Conversation As a graduate student in social work, I had the opportunity to interview two colleagues, Jamie Forbes and Amy Wheeler, for a class assignment. Both are survivors of institutional child sexual abuse (ICSA), and our conversations focused not just on what happened to them but on […]

Jamie Forbes - September 30, 2022 Warning: the following content describes sexual abuse and the impact it has had on other’s lives. Some may find it upsetting. Last Friday, I sat in a courtroom with the man who sexually abused me. It was the first time since I graduated from high school - more than […]

By Jamie Forbes, CEO and Survivor I set out to write a series of blog posts about my experience as a survivor of sexual abuse. As I began the process, the words and the topics to write about poured out of me.  I realized there was a lot I wanted to cover as I began […]

By Amy Wheeler, Executive Director at Learning Courage September 15, 2021 As the Executive Director at Learning Courage and a survivor, my unwavering conviction for the need for Learning Courage was reinforced yesterday when listening to the courageous and painful testimony of four gymnasts in front of the Senate Judiciary. Our systems need to radically […]

By Elena Levin, Brown University, Class of 2022 In my first creative writing course as a freshman in college, I decided to write my final short story about sexual misconduct on a boarding school campus, exploring a world that I had become very familiar with during my four years attending a New England prep school. […]

Being sexually abused changed me in both profound and small ways. I believe that the abuse magnified existing, latent and emerging impulses and thoughts. I don’t believe it’s useful or even possible to identify how different I would be if I had not been abused. But I do think it’s important to acknowledge what consequences feel directly tied to the abuse I sustained.

In 2016, my second year as board chair at Milton Academy (MA), we launched a sexual misconduct investigation. There was no manual to guide us through that journey. There was no resource to answer our questions and help ensure that we were taking the right approach.

Making a public declaration that I had been abused in the 1980s as a student was terrifying. And yet it has also been one of the most meaningful and profound things I have done in my life. It has changed me in positive ways that I’ll share.