Speakers Encourage Everyone To Act To Prevent Child Abuse & Neglect
April 14, 2023 at 10:11 p.m.
Speakers Encourage Everyone To Act To Prevent Child Abuse & Neglect
By David [email protected]
Friday, Bowen Center held a news conference at its health clinic to observe Child Abuse Awareness and Prevention Month.
Dr. Rob Ryan, Bowen Center president and CEO, said June 2 is National Doughnut Day. The first Tuesday of October is “Bring Fruit to Work Day,” while March 14 is National Pie Day.
“Look, if it’s important enough to take a moment to say, ‘I love a doughnut’ or ‘pies are great things,’ how much more important is it to take time today to talk about the important month of April and Child Abuse Prevention Month?” he asked.
At Bowen Center, Ryan said, children are the building blocks of the future.
“Today’s toddlers are tomorrow’s students. Today’s students are tomorrow’s employees, customers and co-workers. And whatever future we want depends on what we do certainly today,” he said. “Now, here at Bowen Center, most of our work is focused on prevention. I wish it weren’t true, but there’s a reality that not everyone grows up in a family that is loving and supportive.”
Bowen Center steps in to help families stay together, help reunite families that have been separated or, in those cases where children no longer have family, to help them find and secure one.
“If we’re going to spend some time working on intervention, how much more important is it to spend on actually making sure it doesn’t happen in the first place?” Ryan asked.
“Today, we’re here to talk about the hope. We understand that it is difficult to raise children in today’s world. There’s a lot of pressures. There’s a lot of tension. We’re here today to share that there is hope. We have resources, and the people you’re going to hear from today can connect families that, before they get to that place where abuse is a problem, we can actually prevent it. And that’s the building blocks of our future that we wall want: is for kids to all grow up in a place that is supportive so that our future customers, our future employees and our future families are all whole and successful,” Ryan stated.
Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer said, “For most people, child abuse is a serious issue that defies the logic of human behavior. We all bare the responsibility of our overall social environment and the well-being of our community. Standing here this afternoon to highlight this issue, I think we are all here to put a stake in the ground - or maybe a pinwheel in the ground - to show our support and create that environment where child abuse has no place.”
A blue pinwheel is the national symbol for child abuse prevention. It represents the good childhood that every child deserves to have.
Kosciusko County Department of Child Services Director Sara Cole said what the majority of the DCS does is respond to abuse and neglect after it already has occurred.
“In 2022, the Kosciusko County DCS assessed approximately 1,100 incidents of child abuse and neglect. However, only a fraction of those assessments led to open involvement with the department,” Cole said. “Additionally, in 2022, the Kosciusko County DCS successfully closed 41 cases. DCS strives to put in prevention efforts during open assessments and as cases are closing out to ensure that DCS does not get involved in the future.”
To accomplish that, she said DCS partners with agencies like the Bowen Center to ensure that families have the support they are going to need to be successful moving forward without DCS’ involvement.
Cole said if a person has concerns of abuse or neglect, “please remember that everyone in Indiana is a mandated reporter of abuse and neglect. If you suspect or have concerns about child abuse or neglect, please call our hotline, which is staffed by DCS employees 24/7/365.” The number is 1-800-800-5556.
Kosciusko County Superior Court I Judge Karin McGrath said, “When you think of childhood, you generally think of happy moments, characterized by the pinwheel - just fun-loving, carefree, not a worry in the world. You don’t think of children living a nightmare. The reality is, many children are living a nightmare and we know the repercussions of that trauma.”
Repeated trauma causes children to shut down, stop functioning in a healthy way and, eventually, causes them to grow into adults who can not function in a healthy way, she said. “They are fractured in their personality. They don’t think straight and they don’t make connections with other people. They don’t have a sense of who they are and what this world is,” she said.
The CDC estimates that 1 in 7 children will experience some form of abuse or neglect, she said, and in 2021 the child death rate was over 1,800.
“That’s horrific,” McGrath said. “And the children who are subjected to that trauma, it doesn’t stop when they turn 18. These kids don’t just leave our system and we can be relieved that they’re now grown up and they’re going to be OK. The damage that’s been caused is repeated then in their own families and the next generation to come, and it impacts our communities in immeasurably negative ways.”
The numbers of child abuse and neglect cases are sad and should make everyone feel sad, she said. “They should make us outraged. The sadness we feel is because we’re human. The care, the deep care about those numbers that we feel, should cause us to act, and I hope every single one of us is here with a mindset that we’re taking action to prevent future abuse and doing everything in our power to see that happens in this community and beyond,” McGrath concluded.
Erin Rowland Jones, the executive director of Court Appoint Special Advocates (CASA), said judges appoint CASA to cases where children have been abused and neglected, but CASA also is involved in some prevention measures as well.
She said many of the children and the families they serve, whether before abuse and neglect or after, need community and they need relationships. “That is healing for a traumatized child, that is healing for adults,” she said.
Rowland Jones called to action those who have not yet filled in a role to be community and provide relationships for somebody that may need that.
“If you can’t be a CASA, be a Big Brother or Big Sister. Be a foster parent. There are so many ways you can get involved to provide that relationship and community to families that need that,” she stated.
Warsaw Community Schools Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert said it takes the entire community to address child abuse and neglect.
Quoting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Hoffert said, “Everyone can be great because everyone can serve. You only need a grateful heart full of grace and a soul generated by love.”
The final speaker before everyone planted blue pinwheels in the clinic’s yard was Kosciusko County Prosecuting Attorney Brad Voelz.
“It’s been said that the strength of a community can be measured by how it protects its most vulnerable members, and our children are certainly vulnerable and worthy of protecting,” he said. “That being true, we’ve all chosen to live in a great community.”
Voelz said that because of all the important work all of those at Friday’s event do, because of Child Abuse Prevention Month, because of important events like Friday’s, “we all carry a heightened awareness to always protect the children. And heighted awareness is a very pro-active way to help prevent future abuse.”
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Friday, Bowen Center held a news conference at its health clinic to observe Child Abuse Awareness and Prevention Month.
Dr. Rob Ryan, Bowen Center president and CEO, said June 2 is National Doughnut Day. The first Tuesday of October is “Bring Fruit to Work Day,” while March 14 is National Pie Day.
“Look, if it’s important enough to take a moment to say, ‘I love a doughnut’ or ‘pies are great things,’ how much more important is it to take time today to talk about the important month of April and Child Abuse Prevention Month?” he asked.
At Bowen Center, Ryan said, children are the building blocks of the future.
“Today’s toddlers are tomorrow’s students. Today’s students are tomorrow’s employees, customers and co-workers. And whatever future we want depends on what we do certainly today,” he said. “Now, here at Bowen Center, most of our work is focused on prevention. I wish it weren’t true, but there’s a reality that not everyone grows up in a family that is loving and supportive.”
Bowen Center steps in to help families stay together, help reunite families that have been separated or, in those cases where children no longer have family, to help them find and secure one.
“If we’re going to spend some time working on intervention, how much more important is it to spend on actually making sure it doesn’t happen in the first place?” Ryan asked.
“Today, we’re here to talk about the hope. We understand that it is difficult to raise children in today’s world. There’s a lot of pressures. There’s a lot of tension. We’re here today to share that there is hope. We have resources, and the people you’re going to hear from today can connect families that, before they get to that place where abuse is a problem, we can actually prevent it. And that’s the building blocks of our future that we wall want: is for kids to all grow up in a place that is supportive so that our future customers, our future employees and our future families are all whole and successful,” Ryan stated.
Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer said, “For most people, child abuse is a serious issue that defies the logic of human behavior. We all bare the responsibility of our overall social environment and the well-being of our community. Standing here this afternoon to highlight this issue, I think we are all here to put a stake in the ground - or maybe a pinwheel in the ground - to show our support and create that environment where child abuse has no place.”
A blue pinwheel is the national symbol for child abuse prevention. It represents the good childhood that every child deserves to have.
Kosciusko County Department of Child Services Director Sara Cole said what the majority of the DCS does is respond to abuse and neglect after it already has occurred.
“In 2022, the Kosciusko County DCS assessed approximately 1,100 incidents of child abuse and neglect. However, only a fraction of those assessments led to open involvement with the department,” Cole said. “Additionally, in 2022, the Kosciusko County DCS successfully closed 41 cases. DCS strives to put in prevention efforts during open assessments and as cases are closing out to ensure that DCS does not get involved in the future.”
To accomplish that, she said DCS partners with agencies like the Bowen Center to ensure that families have the support they are going to need to be successful moving forward without DCS’ involvement.
Cole said if a person has concerns of abuse or neglect, “please remember that everyone in Indiana is a mandated reporter of abuse and neglect. If you suspect or have concerns about child abuse or neglect, please call our hotline, which is staffed by DCS employees 24/7/365.” The number is 1-800-800-5556.
Kosciusko County Superior Court I Judge Karin McGrath said, “When you think of childhood, you generally think of happy moments, characterized by the pinwheel - just fun-loving, carefree, not a worry in the world. You don’t think of children living a nightmare. The reality is, many children are living a nightmare and we know the repercussions of that trauma.”
Repeated trauma causes children to shut down, stop functioning in a healthy way and, eventually, causes them to grow into adults who can not function in a healthy way, she said. “They are fractured in their personality. They don’t think straight and they don’t make connections with other people. They don’t have a sense of who they are and what this world is,” she said.
The CDC estimates that 1 in 7 children will experience some form of abuse or neglect, she said, and in 2021 the child death rate was over 1,800.
“That’s horrific,” McGrath said. “And the children who are subjected to that trauma, it doesn’t stop when they turn 18. These kids don’t just leave our system and we can be relieved that they’re now grown up and they’re going to be OK. The damage that’s been caused is repeated then in their own families and the next generation to come, and it impacts our communities in immeasurably negative ways.”
The numbers of child abuse and neglect cases are sad and should make everyone feel sad, she said. “They should make us outraged. The sadness we feel is because we’re human. The care, the deep care about those numbers that we feel, should cause us to act, and I hope every single one of us is here with a mindset that we’re taking action to prevent future abuse and doing everything in our power to see that happens in this community and beyond,” McGrath concluded.
Erin Rowland Jones, the executive director of Court Appoint Special Advocates (CASA), said judges appoint CASA to cases where children have been abused and neglected, but CASA also is involved in some prevention measures as well.
She said many of the children and the families they serve, whether before abuse and neglect or after, need community and they need relationships. “That is healing for a traumatized child, that is healing for adults,” she said.
Rowland Jones called to action those who have not yet filled in a role to be community and provide relationships for somebody that may need that.
“If you can’t be a CASA, be a Big Brother or Big Sister. Be a foster parent. There are so many ways you can get involved to provide that relationship and community to families that need that,” she stated.
Warsaw Community Schools Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert said it takes the entire community to address child abuse and neglect.
Quoting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Hoffert said, “Everyone can be great because everyone can serve. You only need a grateful heart full of grace and a soul generated by love.”
The final speaker before everyone planted blue pinwheels in the clinic’s yard was Kosciusko County Prosecuting Attorney Brad Voelz.
“It’s been said that the strength of a community can be measured by how it protects its most vulnerable members, and our children are certainly vulnerable and worthy of protecting,” he said. “That being true, we’ve all chosen to live in a great community.”
Voelz said that because of all the important work all of those at Friday’s event do, because of Child Abuse Prevention Month, because of important events like Friday’s, “we all carry a heightened awareness to always protect the children. And heighted awareness is a very pro-active way to help prevent future abuse.”
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