Every year since 1983, the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services has joined child welfare professionals across the U.S. in recognizing April as National Child Abuse Prevention Month. One of the best strategies is supporting families before they reach a crisis. Across the state, DCS staff offers prevention and in-home services to support families. These include Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention programs and Resource Linkage staff who focus on families whose children are at risk of coming into state care.
Kid’s Place Child Advocacy Center, a non-profit 501(c)(3) agency, opened in Lawrence County, TN in 1998. Kid’s Place Child Advocacy Center specializes in serving child victims of sexual abuse and severe physical abuse and their non-offending family members in the 22nd Judicial District, which includes Wayne, Lawrence, Giles, and Maury counties in southern Middle Tennessee. They are the only state certified Child Advocacy Center within these counties. They specialize in treating childhood trauma of sexual abuse, physical abuse, exposure to meth, witness to domestic abuse, and witness to homicide. They also offer free training in preventing, reporting, and detecting child abuse for parents and professionals in the communities they serve. Kid’s Place now has a location in Waynesboro on North High Street next to Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
Every year, Kid’s Place oversees the placement of pinwheels in different locations around the counties they serve as a way of demonstrating commitment to building a healthy community and investing in the lives of children. The pinwheels serve as a reminder of the importance of recognizing and reporting suspected child abuse.
Reporting child abuse isn’t just the right thing to do – it’s the law. In Tennessee, everyone is required by state law to report knowledge or suspicions of child abuse or neglect. The Tennessee Child Abuse Hotline takes these reports 24/7, 365 days a year. The number 877-237-0004. Call 911 if there is a life-threatening emergency.
Kid’s Place shares the following tips for recognizing suspected child abuse and the statistics on the impact of child abuse:
- Not all victims of child abuse show physical symptoms. Look for behavioral and emotional changes in children that could include depression, aggression, withdrawal, and poor hygiene. Some victims show no physical or behavioral symptoms of abuse.
- More than 90% of child sexual abuse victims know their abuser. Many children never report abuse. Nearly 70% of all reported sexual assaults occur to children ages 17 and under. Of children who are abused, 20% are abused before age 8.
- Offenders use coercion, threats, play, and manipulation to engage and silence children. If you suspect abuse or neglect, report it. They prepare the child, significant adults, and the environment for the abuse. Eighty-eight percent of all cases of child sexual abuse are never reported to authorities.
- There are many reasons why a child may not report child abuse including fear, confusion, depression, and self-blame.
- The long-term impact of child abuse is staggering. Lifetime estimates of lost work productivity, health care costs, special education costs, child welfare expenses, and criminal justice expenditures add up to $585 billion. • As many as two-thirds of the people in alcohol and drug treatment reported being abused or neglected as children. Children who experience child abuse and neglect are 9 times more likely to become involved in criminal activity. Abused children are 25% more likely to become a teenage parent.
- Child abuse is a public health concern. It impacts the victim, their family, the local community, and society as a whole. Long-term consequences of child abuse include emotional and mental health problems, delinquency and crime, substance abuse issues, academic problems, and many others. If you suspect abuse, call the Child Abuse Hotline at 1-877-237-0004.
