Let's Protect Our Kids

One of the best parts of my job is the privilege of going out and talking to groups of parents.  I spoke with a group of parents yesterday, and this particular group was definitely struggling to put their lives in order.  Most of them were single parents with very young children.  I have been there.  It’s not easy.  We talked for about an hour about how to keep kids safe, and we covered some very basic (but potentially life-changing) things we can do for our young ones. 

• We need to heal our own wounded parts.  Many of us were not raised in healthy, nurturing environments.  We have to make a decision that we want something better for our kids.  We have to decide to get help where we know we have issues and challenges.  It’s hard to pay attention to our kids when our own neediness and unfinished business gets in the way. (Definitely not a simple task but critical – for ourselves and for our kids.)
• We need to tell our kids that we love them.  Even if we didn’t get that message growing up — that doesn’t mean that we can’t do something different than we were taught. 
• We need to teach our kids that their bodies are precious and their own, that the parts of their bodies that their bathing suits cover are private parts, that nobody is to touch them there, that we want to know if someone tries to do that.  (Not in an alarmist tone – just as nonchalantly as we can.)
• This also means teaching them the correct anatomical names of all of their body parts.  Yes, I mean the private parts, so some may need to practice saying penis and vagina without embarassment, in the same manner and tone that we would name any other body part.

So, this is where the mood of the room changed fairly dramatically.  We spent a long time on this last one.  We had an interesting discussion about different cultural norms, about how our parents raised us, about fear, about shame.  It was a wonderful discussion with a lot of laughter as everyone shared what their experiences had been, what their fears were.  I told them some stories about children who have had names for their private areas that made it confusing for adults to understand that they were actually making an outcry of sexual abuse.  “My uncle hurt my bunny” for example.

Kids who are confident, who feel loved and valued, who are supported — they are much less likely to become victimized.  Let’s try to get past our discomfort and give these things a try.  At the very least, for today, let’s all take time to tell our kids that we adore them, that we would lay down our lives for them.  

And perhaps when the appropriate time comes (which I hope is very soon), we can all be brave and help our kids rename “JJ” and “stick.”

My name is Isabella* and I am 10 years old. I want you to know to not be afraid to tell someone about the abuse or that someone is abusing you. It was difficult for me but I was able to trust my mom. I felt shy when she brought me here but she told me to tell the truth and I felt better because she was supporting me. You can always find someone to talk to. If you feel sad, find something to do like watch TV, paint, or do something fun. Talking to someone and eating Flaming Hot Cheetos helps me feel better. It is hard to forget about the abuse and sometimes you can feel lonely.

Talk to someone you can trust like your mom, grandma, teacher, or therapist. For me it is better to talk to a girl like my mom because I feel more comfortable and she can understand me. Now I feel good because my mom supports me. I have learned to not trust everyone. If you are mad at the person who abused you, you can throw a ball at the wall.

I have learned that I am strong and proud of myself for telling my mom. I was able to stop the abuse and I feel like a hero. You are a hero too because you helped stop the abuse. You do not need wings to be a hero-you are a hero because you told the truth. Now I have friends, and I can play the piano.

People thought that I would always be sad for the rest of my life, but they were wrong because you can be happy.

*names changed for confidentiality purposes.

The video on this page gives a preview of our Recognizing and Reporting Child Abuse curriculum.  Watch it.  Call us.  We can help.  http://www.dcac.org/rrca.aspx

We developed this video-based curriculum and companion booklet with a significant financial investment because we wanted to offer something that was approachable, interactive and impactful. We were then privileged to be the sole source recipient of a grant from the Texas Center for the Judiciary through the Children’s Justice Act to make the course applicable for the entire State of Texas. Once the draft course was developed, it was fine tuned with experts from the fields of forensic interviewing, therapy, child protective services and law enforcement.

We were able to effectively incorporate the ideas and strategies of state-level organizations to ensure the curriculum and accompanying materials were of the highest quality. Through a one-day training and focus group, hosted by the Texas Center for the Judiciary, we were able to obtain key insights and revisions to the video and booklet associated with the training program. Included in this group were high-level professionals representing:

•  Child Protective Services
• Texas Municipal Police Association
• Texas Education Agency
• Children’s Advocacy Centers of Texas
• Travis County District Attorney’s Office, and the
• Texas Alliance for Drug Endangered Children.

The course was field tested with school counselors in a local school district to demonstrate that the curriculum was effective. Evaluation results demonstrated an average pre-test score of 59.6% and average posttest score of 84.2%. On an ongoing basis, we pre- and post-tests learners and make adjustments to messaging to reinforce key points in the curriculum.

We now use this curriculum exclusively for training of professionals and parents, and are currently training other organizations across the state so that they can train in their communities.

Have you had us train your volunteers and staff?  It’s free.  We will come to you.  You can schedule by contacting education@dcac.org

This is about hope, about transformation, about overcoming what has been handed to you and finding a way through.  We can learn much from this young man.

Coach Mike McQueary’s testimony in a preliminary hearing regarding the recent Penn State scandal is so hard to read.  He said that he didn’t go to the police when he saw Sandusky and a seeming 10 year-old boy in the shower, and “it was very clear that it looked like there was intercourse going on.”  He looked in on them “several times.”  He thought it was a crime; he didn’t go to the police because “of the delicate nature” of what he saw.

Did I read that correctly?

What message did McQueary send to that child?  What might have been going through that child’s mind.  Might he have been desperate for this horrific encounter to end?  For someone to come to his rescue?  That boy might have believed, “Nobody will help me;”  “If someone saw this and walked away, it must be OK.”

Would he have left that child to bleed to death if Sandusky had been stabbing him with a knife?  We can do better than this for our children.

For all of the children brutalized by someone you loved and trusted:  hear THIS message.  This is not normal; this is not your fault; you are not damaged; you can heal.  We are outraged; we mourn for your sorrow.

May you find the strength to work through your pain and grief; may you find peace.

This week, I visited two parent groups at, quite literally, opposite ends of Dallas County – north and south.  Despite the distance between these groups, the differences in the neighborhoods and the make up of the audiences, one thing was abundantly clear:  we all want what is best for our children.

We want to be better parents.  We want our children to grow and thrive and be all that they can be.  Some ideas that we discussed in these groups:

• Parents can do so much for their children just by healing themselves.  We are all wounded at some point along our path, and seeking care to help ourselves is a great first step.  If you are a survivor of abuse and have never told anyone, it’s time.  We all need to process through our grief.
• Children need to know that we love them, that we would lay down our lives for them.  They need to know that they are the most precious and special people in the world to us.
• We need to teach our kids the proper names of their body parts — all of them.  Any other messages sends a signal to our kids that some parts of their body are shameful and not to be discussed.
• We need to be active and engaged in our kids’ lives.  Those who want to rob our houses will go on to the next house if we have a dog barking in our house.  We need to be the barking dog for our own children.  We need to show up for our kids, attend the events they are engaged in, and show them (and all around them) that we know what is happening in their lives.
• We need to be brave enough as parents to discuss any topic of conversation with our kids.  If something is perceived as “taboo” for discussion, they will seek out adults elsewhere to talk to, or they will not speak when something is uncomfortable.
• We can minimize or eliminate one adult/one child situations.  If a child must be alone with an adult, we can watch the child’s behavior afterward.
• We can ask to see the child protection policies in the schools, day cares and places of worship that serve our children.  These should include policies that are in congruence with the law, should include training requirements for all staff and volunteers as well as regular background checks for anyone working with children.
• We need to know how to respond if a child makes an “outcry” to us.  Remain calm.  Don’t react emotionally.  Don’t make promises you can’t keep.  Make a report.
• We can empower ourselves and our children by becoming educated about the realities of child abuse in our community.

There is much we can do!  Our agency will come out and talk to parent groups, church groups, etc. and help raise awareness and discuss how to protect kids.  We just need an invitation.

Would you know what to do if you suspected a child was being abused?  Would you know how to respond and what to do next if a child disclosed abuse to you?

Here’s a call out to all parents and leaders in places of worship, parent groups, schools, day cares — pass along this link for free online video-based training to everyone you know.   Once on our free training campus, the video entitled Recognizing and Reporting will help you understand how to respond if a child discloses to you and what to do to make a report.

Do you know if you are a mandated reporter?  If you are an adult in Texas, you are mandated to report.  The laws vary by state but can be found here in a state-by-state review of the mandated reporting laws.

Empower yourself with knowledge about what to do.  Be ready to respond.  You just might be the one called upon to speak on behalf of a child.

Please pass this message along to your friends and family, to the leaders in organizations that care for your children:  places of worship, schools, day cares, sports organizations, media outlets, social networking sites, etc.

This is an excerpt from a slate.com post is says it all.  This is in response to the recent events at Penn State:

…many have painted this story as one fundamentally about Penn State or college athletics. At the Sports Law Blog, for example, Alan Milstein asked whether, were the perpetrator an assistant professor of biology and the witness a graduate student, there was “any doubt the perpetrator, if aware he had been seen, would immediately stop, the witness would intervene, the cops would be called, the professor would be put away, and the university and its president would not be implicated in the least?” In Milstein’s mind, there was no doubt: The big money in college football is the reason Jerry Sandusky’s abuse was not reported.

As part of our mission, we at the Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center provide free online training for parents:  Keeping Your Children Safe from Harm and for professionals or volunteers who work in schools, places of worship and other child serving organizations:  Recognizing and Reporting Child Abuse.

These can be found online at our Training Campus:  http://dcac.trainingcampus.net/

Register as a new user, and then go to My Activities to see the available courses.  You will take a pre-test to assess your current knowledge base, then watch the 25-30 minute video (each course), and then take a post-test to see what you’ve learned.

Now is a great time to do this.  Take less than an hour out of your day to learn how to protect our kids.  Please spread the word!

Graduation of clients in our building is a beautiful rite of passage.  Remember that a “client” for us is typically a 10 year-old little girl who has been sexually abused by someone she knows and trusts. “Graduation” means that one or more of  these children have reached a milestone in their healing and are ready to, at least for the time being, leave the therapeutic process and move on with their young lives.  It is a joyous event for the staff and partners who work in our building – to see that hope and healing can and does occur — to remember why we are here — to remember to be thankful.

When it is time for graduation, detectives, CPS professionals, therapists, forensic interviewers, administrative staff, educators, development officers, and really anyone who is in the building at the time, stop for a few moments to honor the progress of these children.  All of the staff and partners line both sides of the hallway on our main floor.  A therapist will bring one or more clients to the hallway, introduce the clients and talk about how proud they are for their success in completing therapy.  The children then walk through the group, with all adults high-fiving and clapping and speaking words of encouragement — “Way to go!”  “You’re awesome.”  “Good job.”  It is a blissful moment in the middle of work that is often heartbreaking beyond belief.

Recently, three of our therapists graduated a “3 day group,” which is an intensive, three days of group therapy to help clients overcome the effects of abuse.  They stood ready to graduate, alongside their caregivers who came to show them support. One by one, the therapists read notes the children had written to the staff. They thanked their therapists and everyone else at DCAC for helping them to heal and become survivors. After their notes were read, each of the caregivers took a moment to thank everyone involved in the healing process. Occasionally pausing to swallow tears, they taught us a little bit about what thankfulness is all about:

“Thank you to the Detective who handled our case, who made me struggle a bit and work, but who gave us a chance to get better.”

“Thank you—you all have helped me provide for my family when I wasn’t able to, even financially helping me.”

“Thank you, especially to the therapists, for taking the time to talk to us, they didn’t have to.”

“Thank you—because of you, because of CPS, the therapists, all of you, [we] have gone from being victims to survivors.”

“All I can say is thank-you… I have no words for how you have helped my family. You have given us so much…”

There is nothing more humbling than these proclamations of thanks. It is a moment when we realize that our cause is so much greater than any one of us, and the need is so much greater than what any one of us can solve. We realize that thankfulness may be somewhat about being grateful for what we have, but it is even more about the realization of what we have to offer.

These precious families see DCAC and its partners as heroes, but, we could never be a hero to any of these children and their families unless there were countless others who support our work, like you.

So, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, we’ll say what these were not able to:

“THANK YOU, for remembering these families by supporting DCAC. We could not do this without you.”