About
We built what was missing
Olley began with a question that kept coming back. If parents are the people children are closest to, why don't we have more prevention for them?
Where it started
A gap hiding in plain sight
Prevention research has covered a lot of ground. Body safety programs for kids work. Policy and environmental approaches to the online world show promise. But when you look for programs built for parents, there is almost nothing there.
The CDC has said it plainly. In its Report to Congress on Child Sexual Abuse Prevention, it names both the gap and the reason it matters:
Parents are an important source of information for their children and often need help in communicating with them about CSA. … Although no specific evidence-based, parent-focused prevention programs have shown reductions in CSA victimization and perpetration, parents have enormous influence on their children's behavior. Parental awareness and knowledge of risk factors may alert them to danger and allow them to be more effective gatekeepers.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Report to Congress on Child Sexual Abuse Prevention, 2019
That last line is where most prevention has stopped. Make parents aware, give them the risk factors, and trust that knowing will be enough. It is a reasonable place to start. It is not a place to finish.
Knowing that most people who harm children are known to the family does not tell you what to say when your eleven-year-old goes quiet at dinner. Knowing the warning signs does not steady your face when your kid finally tells you something hard. Awareness makes a parent alert. It does not make them skilled.
So Olley picks up where awareness leaves off. Parents rehearse the difficult conversations out loud and get feedback while they do it, because behavioral rehearsal is one of the few approaches the research consistently shows will change what adults actually do, not just what they know.
We do this in a room with some joy in it. Nobody is trying to get it perfect. People fumble the words, laugh at themselves, and start the sentence over. The clumsiness is welcome, because what parents are really practicing is the feel of the moment. Then the real version, the one that happens in your own kitchen with your teenager on an ordinary Tuesday night, is not the first time you have been there.
The name
Olly olly oxen free!
Every kid who has ever played hide and seek knows the call. It is the one you shout at the end of the game, and it means the same thing every time. Come out, come out. It is safe now.
That's the whole idea.
Yes, we added an E. Boundaries had to go somewhere. 🙂
How it was built
Developed with an advisory team over a year
Olley was designed following state of the science program design principles, drawing on theory, the existing literature, and community voices to address the known and priority risk factors for child sexual abuse. An advisory team of more than twenty parents, trainers, practitioners, and people with lived experience met across a year of development to review the program model, the evaluation framework, and each module. Development staff revised the program after every meeting to address their feedback.
Theory first
The design targets the psychosocial factors that predict protective behavior, not just what parents know.
Practice, not slideshows
Behavioral rehearsal has strong evidence behind it in adult learning. So parents rehearse, and facilitators give feedback.
Community voices
Role play scenarios were co-developed with Child Advocacy Center staff, drawn from what parents really face.
Measured from day one
Pre, post, and three month follow up surveys, reviewed by an independent IRB, with a third party evaluation partner.
Who's behind it
Dr. Nancy L. Weaver
Nancy is a behavioral scientist who has spent her career on one question with a wide reach. What moves a person from noticing to acting?
She founded Support Over Silence in 2021 to scale Support Over Silence for KIDS, a train the trainer program that teaches bystanders how to support caregivers during hard moments in public. Olley grew out of that work and runs on the same infrastructure.
She also hosts Out Here with KIDS, the Support Over Silence podcast.
Part of something larger
What our work has in common
Everything Support Over Silence does is built on the same three things: connection, compassion, and science. None of it is a lecture. Participants practice out loud, work through real situations, and get feedback while they do it.
Much of how we do that comes from applied improvisation, the use of improv technique outside the theater. Nobody performs and nobody memorizes a line. What people practice is responding in the moment to what the other person actually said, which is exactly what a hard conversation with your own kid asks of you. It is a rare ingredient in prevention work, and it is a large part of why our rooms feel the way they do.
Our facilitators earn their credential through days of in-person training, covering facilitation, storytelling, and how to build a room where people feel safe enough to say something true. They keep building that proficiency through coaching and a network of other facilitators. We tailor what we deliver for the communities that host it, including faith communities.
Olley
A 90 minute program that helps parents of school-age children prevent child sexual abuse through trust and connection.
Olley From the Start
A prenatal and postnatal version of Olley, coming soon.
Support Over Silence for KIDS
Teaching everyday people how to help a struggling caregiver in public.
Out Here with KIDS
The podcast. Parenting, community, and child wellbeing, with the warmth and honesty of a trusted friend who happens to have decades of public health expertise.
Start with the one-pager
Own your own emotions. Lead with connection. Listen with curiosity. Establish and enforce boundaries. Remember you are not alone. All five on one page.
Get the one-pager