LINTON, Ind. (WTWO/WAWV) – A former sergeant with the Indianapolis Police Department is using his personal journey to teach a local school corporation the importance of child sexual abuse education.
Terry Hall was with the Indianapolis Police Department for over 30 years.
He says in 1983 while working in the sex crimes unit, he dealt with a case that changed him.
“I had a case that just changed my life. I had very important people, pillars, of our community molest a little girl from age 8 to 12 and the sentencing they got was just pitiful,” said Sgt. Terry Hall, Body Safety Program founder.
It was this case that caused hall to focus on what could be done to prevent these types of crimes against children.
“I developed a program called the Good Touch-Bad Touch program,” Hall said.
Over the years the name of the program was changed to the Body Safety program.
Hall says the purpose of his program is not sex education, but to empower young children and students.
“It lets the kids know their bodies belong to them. It’s a body safety program and it empowers the kids to tell and who to tell and what to do if they’re not believed,” Hall said.
Since 1983, Hall says he has spoken to over 600,000 people as a part of this program.
Both Thursday and Friday, students, staff, and parents at Linton-Stockon schools will hear his message.
“The state of Indiana schools are now required to provide child abuse and child sexual abuse education to all students K-12, and I just felt like Terry coming and doing his presentation with our students is the best way to do that,” said Heather Harris, Linton-Stockon School Corp. social worker.
Hall says while he hopes to empower and educate many with this program he has also seen its impact go well beyond that.
“Almost every school I go to, we find one to three victims out of the school,” Hall said.
Hall says in order to develop his program he interviewed inmates in jail for crimes against children.
He says this allowed him to learn more on how they commit their crimes and what they did to attempt to keep children silent, so he could educate others.
