Did You Know?

Throughout FY 06-07, the Child & Family Support Center provided beyond 10,488 hours of care to 3,219 children in our Nursery.  The Good-Touch/Bad-Touch® Program was presented to more than 3,800 individuals in our community.  The CFSC Therapy Department served over 150 victims of abuse.

The Children's Memorial Flag has already brought the issue of child abuse and neglect to light for thousands of people and is essential to helping to realize the dream of eliminating violence against children.

Child Welfare League of America –
“Making Children a National Priority”

• Child abuse is doing something or failing to do something that results in harm to a child or puts a child at risk of harm. Child abuse can be physical, sexual or emotional. Neglect, or not providing for a child's needs, is also a form of abuse.
  
  
• Most abused children suffer greater emotional than physical damage. An abused child may become depressed. He or she may withdraw, think of suicide or become violent. An older child may use drugs or alcohol, try to run away or abuse others.   -  Medline, http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/childabuse.html

• Utah is the 8th highest state in substantiated cases of child abuse, with 18.3 per 1,000 children, compared to the national average of 11.9 children per 1,000.

• Utah taxpayers are spending $1,461,635,251.44 per year on child abuse.For $2.5 million, we could provide child abuse prevention instruction and programs for all 505,400 students in Utah schools.
  
  
• Each day in the U.S., more than 4 children die as a result of child abuse in the home.
  
  
• More than three-quarters (78.7 per cent) of the children who die are younger than four years of age.
  
  
• Of these fatalities, 89 percent were under the age of eight; 43.6 percent were under the age of one.
  
  
• The rate of infant homicide reached a 30-year high in 2000.
  
  
• Research studies of infant death data drawn from multiple agency records (e.g. police or social services) indicate that the actual rate of infant deaths attributed to substantiated abuse or neglect of infants and children up to four years of age is more than twice as high as the official rates reported in death certificate data.
  
  
• Homicide is the leading cause of injury deaths among infants under one year of age in the U.S. Nearly one-half of substantiated cases of child neglect and abuse are associated with parental alcohol or drug use.
  
  
• It is estimated that one in every four children in the United States (28 million) are living in a household with an alcoholic adult.
  
  
• Convicted rape and sexual assault offenders serving time in state prisons report that two-thirds of their victims were under the age of 18.
  
  
• One of every seven victims of sexual assault reported to law enforcement agencies were under the age of six.
  
  
• Among rape victims less than 12 years of age, 90% of the children knew the offender, according to police-recorded incident data.
  
  
• Frequently, the person who sexually molests a child is also a child.
  
  
• The actual incidence of abuse and neglect is estimated to be three times greater than the number reported to authorities.
  
  
• Child abuse is reported approximately every 10 seconds.

Child help, National Child Abuse Statistics. http://www.childhelp.org/uploads/Gl/ci/GlciCz0RJ5B-BqEfR8Bh_w/STATS-2006.pdf

• Over 37,218 complaints of child abuse and neglect are made each year.
• The most common complaints involve children who witness domestic violence and children who are sexually abused.
• Neglect accounts for 38.5 percent of children in custody.
• Approximately 2,312 children are in foster care.
• Substance abuse was a factor in 56 percent of children placed in foster care.

- Utah Department of Human Services, Annual Report –

• As of 10/31/07 listed on the Utah Department of Corrections website, there are 58 registered sex offenders living in Cache Valley. [Website]
  
  
• Latest DCFS statistics affirm 3,454 (11.8%) of Cache County children  are numbered as living in poverty and 217 supported cases of child abuse this past year. – Kids Count 2007 Data Sheet http://www.utahchildren.org/projects_kids.html  

It is easier to build a strong child than to repair a broken man.  ~ Frederick Douglass

Child Health USA 2006.
http://www.mchb.hrsa.gov/chusa_06/healthstat/children/graphs/0314can.htm Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families. Child maltreatment 2004. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office; 2006.

“If our American way of life fails the child, it fails us all.” – Pearl S. Buck

According to the 1997 Sex Offense and Offenders Study, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice and 1999 National Crime Victimization Study:

• Seven percent of girls in grades five to eight and twelve percent of girls in grades nine through twelve said they had been sexually abused according to the 1998 Commonwealth Fund Survey of the Health of Adolescent Girls.
  
  
• Three percent of boys in grades five through eight and five percent of boys in grades nine through twelve said they had been sexually abused according to the 1998 Commonwealth Fund Survey of the Health of Adolescent Boys.
  
  
• 93% of juvenile sexual assault victims knew their attacker; 34.2% were family members and 58.7%  were acquaintances. Only seven percent of the perpetrators were strangers to the victim, according to the 2000 Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement. This study is available at the Bureau of Justice Statistics website.
  
  
  
• In 1995, local child protective service agencies identified 126,000 children who were victims of either substantiated or indicated sexual abuse; of these, 75% were girls. Nearly 30% of child victims were between the ages of 4 and 7. This is according to the 1995 Child Maltreatment study, US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families.  http://www.rainn.org/statistics/victims-of-sexual-assault.html

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study Pyramid
http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/ace/pyramid.htm

• “I find in my clinical practice a spill-over effect where pornography used by adults very frequently gets into the hands of children living in the home or neighborhood. This can cause extremely negative consequences.

• For example, the parents of a 14-year-old boy brought their son to me when they discovered that he was sexually molesting his sister. We found on investigation that cable TV was in the home, and late at night on one of the channels, there were some very graphic, rough, very violent depictions of sexuality. He got up at two in the morning, went downstairs, and watched these films night after night. They became the training manual or "sex education" that triggered him to assault his sister sexually.”  - VICTOR B. CLINE, Ph.D., Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Salt Lake City UT

• “…investigation of these crimes also signals a strong correlation between child pornography offenders and molesters of children. In Operation Candyman, for example, of the 90 people arrested …11admitted to molesting a combined total of 48 children. These offenders included a school bus driver, a foster parent, a mentor for underprivileged children, a member of the armed forces, a delivery person, a landscaper, a prison case worker, a janitor, an office manager, a security guard and his wife. This number, though alarming, probably represents only a small fraction of child molestations committed…”   - Testimony of Michael J. Heimbach, Crimes Against Children Unit, Criminal Investigative Division, FBI; Before the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, Committee on the Judiciary, United States House of Representatives, May 1, 2002
  http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress02/heimbach050102.htm

• “It is clear that unless we find new resources and new energy for preventing child abuse/neglect (and the other factors which stand between our children and success in life) we will be fighting a losing battle. A greater and greater percentage of our tax dollars will go to building jails and prisons… we will pay the burgeoning costs of out-of-home placement for children, and deal with the rising costs of mental health and other treatment services related to abuse. To say nothing of the tragic price the victims pay.”   - The Good Community Committee ~ Springfield, Missouri. Chair, Dr. Lloyd Young.  http://www.goodcommunity.net/ChildAbuseWhitePaper.htm
  
  
• Child Welfare Information Gateway recommends family-centered resources to support and preserve families through a respectful, strengths-based approach that views the family as central to the child's well-being. This Includes information on specific family-centered practice approaches, such as family group decision-making and resources on cultural competence, casework practice, and providing and evaluating family-centered services. http://www.childwelfare.gov/famcentered/index.cfm

• An estimated 872,000 children were victims of child abuse or neglect in 2004 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2006). While physical injuries may or may not be immediately visible, abuse and neglect can have consequences for children, families, and society that last lifetimes, if not generations.
  
  
• The impact of child abuse and neglect is often discussed in terms of physical, psychological, behavioral, and societal consequences. In reality, however, it is impossible to separate them completely. Physical consequences, such as damage to a child's growing brain, can have psychological implications, such as cognitive delays or emotional difficulties. Psychological problems often manifest as high-risk behaviors. Depression and anxiety, for example, may make a person more likely to smoke, abuse alcohol or illicit drugs, or overeat. High-risk behaviors, in turn, can lead to long-term physical health problems such as sexually transmitted diseases, cancer, and obesity. http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/factsheets/long_term_consequences.cfm

• In 2004, an estimated 872,000 children in the U.S. were substantiated as victims of child abuse and neglect.  Repeat that number aloud to yourself and listen to what you’re saying.

• According to the Prevent Child Abuse America 2004 study of Child Maltreatment: Reports, Victims and Families, the nation spends “…$228 million each day (nearly $94 billion each year) as a direct or indirect result of the abuse and neglect of our nation’s children.  The estimate includes direct costs associated with intervening to help, and treating the medical and emotional problems suffered by abused and neglected children, as well as the indirect costs associated with the long-term consequences of abuse and neglect to both the individual and society at large.”

There is no greater insight into the future
than recognizing when we save our children,
we save ourselves.

~ Margaret Mead -