Prevent Child Abuse New York's Blog

Today's Family Presents Prevent Child Abuse America

A nice overview of how Prevent Child Abuse America and its state chapters work to stop child abuse and neglect before it has a chance to start.

Child Advocacy Center in the News

The Star-Gazette in Elmira, New York, published an editorial in support of the Chemung County Child Advocacy Center. Child Advocacy Centers are community-based facilities that reduce the trauma experienced by children who are victims of sexual abuse and severe physical abuse by providing them with a child-focused environment and with timely treatment and service delivery.

At these centers various members of the child protection, law enforcement, prosecution, victim advocacy, medical and mental health communities provide children and their families comprehensive services within a child-friendly environment designed to meet the child's needs. This greatly reduces the number of interviews a child victim must endure, while also allowing the child to receive needed services in one location.

The Child Advocacy Center model also benefits the government agencies charged with protecting children because it reduces investigative time and creates more efficient case processing.

Read more about Child Advocacy Centers here.

PCANY Supports Legislation to Allow CPS Access to Criminal History Information

Child Protective Services' (CPS) initial task is to assess the safety of and risk to children when an investigation commences in response to a report of suspected child abuse or maltreatment. A reasonable and valid assessment depends on full and reliable information about the adults living with the child or otherwise named as subjects of the report.

Currently CPS investigators do not have access to criminal record information databases that would enable them to immediately determine if a person named in the report has a violent criminal history or previously committed crimes against children.

Prevent Child Abuse New York urges passage of A.4425-A (Mayerson) / S. 2978-A (Robach).

This legislation, authorizing CPS access to relevant criminal history information, will help to better safeguard the well being of our state's children. In addition, this information can help CPS professionals better prepare to respond to allegations of abuse or neglect through more complete understanding of the risk and safety measures needed for them to conduct their investigations.

We note that the legislation stipulates that a case of child abuse or maltreatment shall not be indicated solely on the basis of the existence of a criminal record.

Summary, status, text, sponsor's memo can be found through a Bill No. search at http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/menugetf.cgi

PCANY Supports Legislation to Extend the Statute of Limitations for Sex Offenses

Sex crimes, particularly those committed against children, are among the most heinous in our society, and leave life-long mental, emotional, and physical scars on their victims.

Most victims of child sexual abuse are victimized by someone known to them, often a family member, over a long period of time. By virtue of the trauma involved, most victims do not disclose at the time of abuse. Instead, the abuse comes to light years later after the victim feels safe enough or emotionally able to disclose the abuse.

Currently in New York State, survivors of childhood sexual abuse have only three years after age 18 to bring a civil claim against their abusers. This period is too short. Many survivors are unable or unwilling to bring claims until they are emotionally and financially free from the perpetrator. Often, this does not occur until long after age 21.

Therefore, Prevent Child Abuse New York urges passage of A. 4560-B (Markey, Lentol, et al.) / S. 4614-A (Saland).

This proposal would extend the authority to prosecute and to bring a civil lawsuit for damages in child sexual abuse cases and provide a remedy for those whose lives have been unalterably changed by the horror of childhood sexual abuse.

By extending the time to seek justice to a five-year window that does not begin until the victim turns 23, victims of these horrific crimes will be able to seek the justice they have been denied.

Summary, status, text, sponsor's memo can be found through a Bill No. search at http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/menugetf.cgi

Child Welfare League of America Radio Blog, "Speaking for America's Children"

On the Line with CWLA is a thought-provoking, interactive, live Internet radio program focusing on subjects, stories, and strategies of special interest to child welfare policymakers, providers, and practitioners. The program, devoted solely to discussions about the welfare of America's vulnerable children, features a forum where numerous points of view and voices of experience within the child welfare universe can be heard.

The live program, hosted by broadcasting veteran Tony Regusters, is a production of CWLA that will provide a platform for CWLA member organizations, their staffs, its partners, and concerned citizens in the national community to share ideas and thoughts about critical issues that affect child welfare agencies, vulnerable children and teens, and their families.

The weekly subject-oriented, solutions-driven program will broadcast Wednesdays, 2:00-2:30 pm ET and feature indepth, timely discussions with leading child welfare experts, agents, and advocates; leadership and representatives from CWLA's member agencies; and local and national political figures working to improve child welfare and give a voice to child welfare professionals, providers, and practitioners nationwide.

The call-in number is 347-326-9411

Click here to listen online.

Conference: The Challenges of Working with Families in an Urban Environment

Presented by New York Zero-to-Three Network, this is a one-day conference where professionals will learn about:

• The nature of urban life for families in New York City
• The effect of the environmental context on the development of children
• The diversity of families in the urban environment and how to engage them
• The challenges urban families face and what professionals need to know to help them

With featured speakers:

• Lawrence Aber, Ph.D.
• Martha Edwards, Ph.D.
• Rebecca Shahmoon Shanok, LCSW, Ph.D.

When and where:
Friday, May 16, 2008
8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.
William and Anita Newman Vertical Campus Conference Center at Baruch College
55 Lexington Avenue (at 24th Street)

Click here to learn more.

Major Federal Legislation Concerned with Child Protection, Child Welfare and Adoption

This factsheet, released by the Child Welfare Information Gateway, provides a framework for understanding the federal legislation that has shaped the delivery of child welfare services throughout the country. It includes a timeline of relevant legislation, starting with the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) passed in 1974, as well as an overview of each act and its provisions.

Child Death Review Web Cast

Is it Injury or Neglect?
Bridging our understanding of child fatalities caused from unintentional injury and neglect.
April 30, 2008    
3:00-4:30 EDT

This web cast will describe child fatalities caused by both injury and /or neglect. It will describe efforts to better define neglect, and models of case reviews that lead to improved understanding and improved reporting and surveillance. This web cast will describe efforts in communities and states to use this new understanding of the intersection between unintentional injuries and neglect to improve child welfare systems and community injury prevention programming. 

Click here to register.

PCANY Prevention Network Partner of the Month: Child Find of America

Child Find of America’s Telephone Services for NY Dads and Moms Parenting Apart
PARENT HELP…1-800-716-3468

Child Find’s PARENT HELP program, which has been up and running since May 2006, is  funded by a five year Healthy Family – Responsible Fatherhood demonstration grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Family Assistance. PARENT HELP’s telephone- based interventions focus on improving poor relationships between separated parents….and preventing parental abduction.
Too often those poor relationships lead to denied or restricted visitation which limits the emotional support a non-custodial parent can provide. Poor parental relationships also lead to failure to provide financial support, battles over custody, inappropriate use of children as message carriers, spies, or confidants, and campaigns to alienate a child’s affection for the other parent.
At the extreme, parents abduct their children. Most abducted children live the life of a fugitive. During life on the run, these youngsters suffer emotional turmoil, inadequate schooling, unstable lifestyles, poor medical treatment, homelessness, and neglect. They have been ripped away from their families, friends, pets, and neighborhoods. In some cases, a parent says the left behind parent is dead, or doesn’t love or want them anymore. In other cases, boys are made to look like girls and girls like boys.     In 2006, there were 122 reported cases of parental child abduction in New York State. More than 263,000 children are parentally abducted nationwide each year. From our experience we know that many other cases of parental abduction and denied visitation are not reported to authorities because families are often hesitant to become involved with police on such issues, and most often do not know that parental abduction and denied visitation are crimes.

All of these impacts resulting from poor parental relationships are abusive to a child. The PARENT HELP goal is to prevent or alleviate them.
Many parenting programs, especially those designed for fathers, have empty seats. Agencies are struggling to engage estranged parents.  Courts can mandate parenting classes for divorcing parents, but many parents have never married. Their separation doesn’t bring them into the court system. Some never shared a household. Most classes were designed for middle class, divorcing parents. They don’t address the situations unwed, low-income parents face.
Law enforcement deals with denied visitation or abduction as a crime against the rights of the custodial parent not against the children, or doesn’t deal with them at all. They can never act until a crime has been committed. Our goal should be prevention.
PARENT HELP will first be tested in New York State. PARENT HELP was designed in partnership with New York State’s Child Support Enforcement (CSE) which currently receives over 80,000 phone calls per month from parents; hundreds of them are from parents with issues other than, or in addition to, child support -- denied visitation, custody battles, and parental disputes. They are calling looking for help. While CSE is not mandated or staffed to address those other issues, NYS CSE Deputy Commissioner Scott Cade recognized that getting assistance to these parents could both improve parenting and increase compliance with child support orders. CSE will refer those callers they can’t assist to Child Find.  Child Find staff can then engage both parents, and provide a range of telephone-based services including information, education, and referral, triage for crises, advocacy and support in negotiating the court system, counseling and conflict resolution.
Over the past 25 years, Child Find has earned a fine reputation for successfully providing these services nationally and internationally when a parent contacts us concerned about abduction or the threat of abduction.
The PARENT HELP goal is to promote responsible parenting by:
•    Increasing the ability of estranged parents to manage their relationship with neutral or positive impact on their children;
•    Decreasing the child abuse of denied visitation and parental abduction;
•    Establishing and increasing compliance with co-parenting plans, support orders, and visitation schedules;
•    Increasing parental knowledge of the developmental stages of childhood and a father’s role in healthy development; 
•    Developing a model that Child Find can reproduce with support enforcement offices in forty-nine additional states.

As of this writing, Parent Help has received over 1200 calls and has opened more than 325 cases. Most parent clients are fathers who are calling from Erie and Onondaga Counties and NYC where we have referral mechanisms in place through child support enforcement, as well as family courts and fatherhood employment training programs. Parent Help television ads have aired in the Hudson Valley, and print ads have appeared in a few publications in Westchester and NYC. In upcoming months, Parent Help will be rolled out in the Capital District and on Long Island. But the program now accepts callers from anywhere, so if you have a client who might benefit please suggest they call Parent Help at  1-800-716-3468. Parent Help info packs with posters and brochures are available for Prevent Child Abuse New York partners by calling the same number.

Click Here for more information about the PCANY Prevention Network

Trends in CM- abuse down, neglect slightly up

David Finkelhor and Lisa Jones, UNH Crimes Against Children Research Center, recent analysis of 2006 NCANDS data was released this month. It shows additional declines in sexual and physical abuse for 2006 over 2005, and the total national decline since 1992 at 53% for sexual abuse and 48% for physical abuse.  State-by-state change rates are also available in the  bulletin at this website:

Updated Trends In Child Maltreatment, 2006- Bulletin

or
Crimes Against Children Research Center