(bright music) - Welcome to At Issue.

I'm H Wayne Wilson.

Thank you for joining us this time for a discussion about child abuse prevention.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that one in seven children in America suffer some form of abuse.

We're going to be talking about that during this month of April, which is Child Abuse Prevention Month.

And to have that conversation, we have Jeff Gress with us.

Jeff is with Crittenton Centers where he's the president and CEO.

Jeff, thank you for joining us.

- Thank you, H. - Also with us, Dr. Channing Petrak.

She is with the Pediatric Resource Center where she is the medical director.

Thank you for being with us.

- Thank you.

- And Molly Evans is here.

Molly is with the McLean County Children's Advocacy Center where she is the director.

Thank you for joining us.

- Thank you for having me.

- And I suppose we ought to start with a definition and I know this can get very broad but what defines child abuse?

Are there examples that we might understand?

- There are, I mean, there's physical abuse which is the infliction of an injury on a child.

So slapping, hitting, burning, kicking, things like that.

There's sexual abuse, which is the act of a sexual nature with a child.

There is emotional abuse which usually is concurrent with some other form of abuse which is shaming or belittling or verbal abuse.

And then there's neglect which can also be concurrent with other forms of abuse which is not providing the basic needs of a child or isolating them and treating them differently, not interacting with your child at all, and not providing them the, you know, basic emotional support they need.

So there's, it could even be medical neglect where you're not getting them the medical care they need.

So there's multiple forms of abuse that can take place.

- So I know there's going to be families out there that are going to say what constitutes too much corporal punishment?

Because you know, you say kids come on in it's time for dinner, and the kids stay outside.

Kids and then they get a little boo on the butt.

- Right.

And spanking is not, or corporal punishment is not against the law in Illinois or any state in the US but if you have left a bruise then that has been deemed excessive corporal punishment so that that would be considered abuse.

- Okay.

So that encouraging pat it would not be considered corporal punishment.

Okay.

So Jeff, how serious of a problem do we have here in central Illinois?

Is there a way to measure that?

- CASA does a good job of talking about indicated cases that come before the court in the course of a year.

And this past year there were over 1,000 cases that came before the court.

I don't know the exact number but that just is an indication of Peoria County.

So we know that that number's even greater for the Central Illinois area - That Peoria County had more than 1,000 reported cases in one year?

- That's how many are currently pending in court.

- Court pending.

- Okay.

And for the audience's benefit, CASA is?

- Court Appointed Special Advocates.

They advocate on behalf of children in the court system that are involved with the child welfare system.

- Molly, Dr. Petrak defines some examples of what child abuse is but could you share with us the consequences of child abuse, the long term consequences other than, okay, there's a bruise or there's a broken bone or what happens long term?

- Sure.

That can differ.

That can differ based on the type of trauma that was inflicted.

Child abuse and neglect obviously is an adverse childhood experience for a kid.

And that can result in long-term medical problems, long-term mental health problems, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder.

It can definitely have an impact on children's ability to function in a school setting, you know, than growing up and going into higher education or even, you know, professionally, it really can make an impact, starting at a very young age on a child or an individual.

- As an adult, they may turn to abuse themselves.

- They they might.

Yeah.

And I think we see that quite often where history is repeating them itself when we don't have some sort of intervention.

So having risk factors where then victims, those who are victims as children go on to have their own children.

And then we see the same thing happening over and over and over again.

- I'm aware of a couple of families that I've come to know over the years regarding adverse childhood experiences and the long term impacts on their health and overall wellbeing.

I mean, I know one family that has six kids and out of the six, five of them all have chronic health challenges.

- Right.

- A couple of them have had a hard time holding jobs.

A couple of them have had challenges within their relationships with others.

So, you know, a lot of times we think that trauma or that initial impact that's something that the child may get over and they might with some counseling and some other assistance but it's showing up more and more and more in the medical field as Dr. Petrak can probably attest to that when we see someone that has chronic health issues if you trace back their history, a lot of times it started with something when they were very young.

- That's exactly right.

That's what the adverse childhood experience studies have shown over time.

And there's information on the CDC website about it if anybody wants more information but it shows that you can have mental health problems.

- Yes.

- But it also shows increased risk of diabetes health problems.

You can have heart disease, high blood pressure so things you wouldn't necessarily associate with a traumatic experience as a child.

And just being a functional, productive adult you may not be able to hold a job.

So it does absolutely affect your functioning and your health long term as an adult because of a traumatic or traumatic experiences that you've had as a child.

- And I think all too often people view child abuse as that mark that was left on a child or that injury that was done.

And don't realize that neglect and maltreatment and those kinds of things can have devastating impacts on person's emotional wellbeing that will then turn into these long-term kind of challenges.

- Later on in the program, we're going to offer up a couple of phone numbers, so grab a pencil and paper and later on we'll show you those phone numbers for reporting abuse.

But before we do that, Dr. Petrak, we probably should talk about what do you look for when you suspect abuse?

- Well, the easiest, I think the easiest thing to see on a child is something we can see on the outside of the body, right?

So none of us have x-ray vision, we can't see fractures.

You might notice a child limping, but we cannot see that there's a fracture.

But we can see bruises.

Bruises on an infant.

We should never have a bruise on a non-mobile baby.

So if a baby's not crawling, walking, they should not have a bruise.

And so if somebody notices bruising on a baby, that's concerning.

And then bruises that are on parts of the body where we don't normally run into things.

Shins and knees, we run into things all the time.

Our forehead as a toddler, sure.

But if it's on soft parts of the body or the back of the body, places you don't typically fall down and hurt yourself.

Those are concerning bruises.

Anything that looks like a pattern.

So injuries that don't seem to make sense for the age and the development of the child.

- For, let's say a grandparent, or a next door neighbor that may have common exposure to a child.

What might they notice in terms of their actions?

I mean, you know, maybe it's a stomachache.

Is that possible that that might be an indicator or and I suppose this depends on age too, but are there other non-physical signs that we might notice?

- Not necessarily.

So I think that's one thing that people will almost placate themselves with is that and medical people do this too, is that, you know, the child seems bonded to their parent or they're interacting appropriately with their caregiver but that doesn't mean that that person hasn't hurt them.

If the child doesn't know any better, that's all they know that's still the person who cares for them and feeds them and changes them and, you know, sometimes is appropriate with them.

That doesn't mean that person isn't always also hurting them.

So you may not notice any difference in their demeanor toward the caregiver.

So no, we may not notice anything subtle at all.

- Who is responsible?

Who has to report child abuse?

- There's a long list of mandated reporters.

So those are the people who have to report.

So anybody in the medical profession is a mandated reporter.

Nurses, doctors, anybody who works in a hospital or an office, dentists, anybody who works with children.

So people who work in schools, bus drivers, anybody who is a daycare provider.

So anybody who has those interactions with children are going to be mandated reporters.

- Jeff, this may reflect upon an earlier discussion we just had some children have special needs and that will put pressure on a parent or parents on a daily basis.

You know, they have a job, they've gotta provide the meal and take care of the house and then they have all these special needs in a child that makes it all the more difficult for a family to make sure that they're treating that child appropriately.

Do we have instances where that has affected a family and it results in abuse in some form?

- Yeah.

- It might be emotional or- - Yeah, I would say, I mean whether the child has special needs or not those life stresses, the challenges with economics, you know, the not having enough money to buy the food or your job changes, but I think when you compound that with a child, maybe it has special needs for a parent that maybe hasn't been equipped or doesn't feel like they have a resource to get help, then I think that just compounds that all the more and I think everybody's vulnerable to making a poor choice, poor decision about how they respond to something.

But I think when you have too much, the likelihood of a negative reaction is there.

- Jeff opened the door for the conversation about preventive steps of families become stressed.

Where do I turn?

And obviously it could be to Crittenton Centers, it could be McClain County Children's Advocacy Center.

I think Pediatric Resource Center is a referral, is that basically how it works?

- Parents can call us.

We take referrals from anybody.

- Okay.

We're gonna talk about Pediatric Resource Center in a moment, but at McLean County Children's Advocacy Center, people can just call in or- - We're actually a referral-based program.

Also, all of our referrals come through either law enforcement or the Department of Children and Family Services when there has been allegations of sexual abuse, severe physical abuse or with children that have witnessed violent crimes.

So we work as a multidisciplinary team with the doing these investigations.

So we work closely with law enforcement the state's attorney's office.

We have a medical component so we work closely with the Pediatric Resource Center.

We have mental health providers and we have our own CAC staff that consist of forensic interviewers and advocates that really wrap around these child victims from the beginning of an investigation.

And we work together throughout the course of an investigation.

Sometimes an investigation ends right after a child is, you know, takes part in a forensic interview and further information is gathered.

Sometimes we're involved with families through the entire court process if criminal proceedings are in place.

- Dr. Petrak, Molly mentioned that they work in conjunction with the PRC.

What role do you play?

- So we are the medical component in that team.

So if a child needs to have a medical exam done so there's a concern of abuse or neglect we are the people who do that medical evaluation.

And then we work with the rest of the team to talk about what the medical findings are and then, you know, if there's recommendations that are made.

We work well with the team throughout that process.

- And Jeff over at the Crittenton Centers.

And by the way, 1892, you've been in business not necessarily with child abuse only, but- - Right.

- But 1892- - Yeah.

Meeting the needs of family since then, so yeah.

- But what role do you play at Crittenton?

- We have the crisis nursery, which operates 24 hours a day.

And so that's a great resource for families that kind of hit that place that they're stressed, they're challenged, they just need their own time out so they can bring their kids for a safe loving time.

We've had situations that have, where parents have brought their kids for a matter of a few hours or a matter of two or three days, kind of depends on what's going on.

As well as we have parenting classes, kids don't come with instruction manuals, you know, and even those of us who maybe had good kind of upbringing on that, still we have a, maybe we had a resource, but some of our families that we work with, they didn't have a good upbringing and they don't have resource.

So the parenting classes are perfect fit for them.

- And that leads us into a conversation about preventive measures because parenting resources how do you go about providing that?

Because I'm, my assumption is that, well, number one, I don't think we're abusing our child.

And number two, I don't need any help being a parent.

What is a parenting manual class like and how do you initiate that?

- Well, I will say that a lot of individuals in getting referred to solos classes are there because the court ordered them initially.

And so they're complying with that.

But I think once they get there is the difference because that parent educator is engaging.

We have a, like eight sessions where we really work on it's not punishment, it's discipline, it's teaching, it's training, it's trying to help them understand how to set boundaries and how to, you know, for their child and for themselves.

So it really does a lot around that as well as we do home visits.

So being in someone's home and seeing how everything functions really gives you a great opportunity to know better about how to provide a good prevention and intervention.

- I wanna talk Molly, about stabilizing a household because I believe that I know many cases there's things going on in the household and there may be financial insecurity, there may be a shortage of food, et cetera.

How do you go about making sure that in the investigation, we've determined what's wrong so that now we can institute some solutions?

- I think that we always want to try to minimize risk.

And a lot of the families that we are involved with there's multiple risk factors involved.

Whether that is mental health issues, unresolved substance abuse issues, domestic violence in the home, families living in poverty.

So whatever we can do to minimize that risk by providing services in those areas.

But then also trying to build up protective factors and parents, like Jeff said, like just 'cause you had a kid doesn't mean you know how to be a parent.

And we have some families that literally have no support.

So how can we wrap around these families and support them and give them the tools to be able to bond, connect with their kids and be able to provide.

- Jeff, that might be a daunting task because there has to, if food security and income security financial issues, if there is no job or if the job is a low paying job, that's a long term solution trying to find a job or- - Yeah.

And I like what I'm hearing out of all three of us, we talk about the resources that we have available to support those families.

And then there's the United Way's 2-1-1 system which is a good place to call into and be able to get information on a lot of things, whether it's housing challenges, food, all sorts of things that a family might need.

Because to Molly's point, we're trying to mitigate any risk to that child.

And if we can help the parent be able to cope and failed to do better with what's in front of them, you're gonna automatically, I think mitigate that risk to the child.

- Dr. Petrak, we talked about corporal punishment and one of the solutions to preventing child abuse is to lessen corporal punishment that may have been learned in their childhood.

The parent may have learned it in their childhood or they may not even know what, you know, what's too far.

How do you go about suggesting, I mean, you work with families as well as the child, right?

- Yes.

- Well, how do you go about saying we need to alter the pattern of behavior?

- Well, one of the things we tend to do when we're, especially in the outpatient setting, is model good parenting styles.

So we don't allow any physical anything in our office.

So we don't allow hitting, we don't allow kicking, we don't allow that in our space.

And we're very clear about that so with children or adults.

But then also we talk to the parents about the risks of corporal punishment.

So there's plenty of studies that show that it really increases your child's risk of more aggressive behavior.

So very often if the child's old enough that they're spanking, they're also complaining about my child's really aggressive, I don't like these behaviors.

So we can talk to the parent about the reason you're seeing these behaviors is because of the spanking and corporal punishment.

So let's talk about, let's not do that so we can correct the behavior that you don't like.

You don't like that behavior, let's fix it.

- Is part of the problem also that it could be that the child hasn't had medical care in quite some time and the family needs to develop a regular visit to the pediatrician, et cetera.

Can that be part of what child abuse is?

- Most of the children are seen on a fairly regular basis.

There are some that don't go regularly for well checks but well visits are pretty short these days.

And so pediatricians unfortunately just don't have enough time to talk about all of those behavioral components and not everybody reads the handouts they're given.

So while that's always a good solution if they have questions about behaviors to go to their their primary care doctor, it's almost a separate visit for something like that because there's just not enough time.

- Jeff, let's talk about education in terms of letting everyone know and the month of April is a child abuse prevention month and you had a pinwheel event?

- Yeah.

Last week.

- And how do you go about making sure that everyone knows that child abuse is not acceptable?

- Yeah, that's a daunting task, honestly.

I mean we do set aside the month of April to really focus on that.

But what I always try to get people to understand that it's our charge.

It's your charge.

It's all of our charge.

Everybody who's listening, everybody who lives in this community to every day to be vigilant on behalf of children and families.

Because we wanted ability to equip parents to be able to better manage their children's developmental stages and what happens there so that abuse doesn't happen.

And we wanna protect children in order to, overall, make a healthier community because that's what we're after.

- Can you reach out to other organizations that may have newsletters or other forms of communication where they can include something about child abuse prevention?

- Yeah, there'll be another event at the end of April on April 28th that will be about that.

And there'll be a lot of organizations that will be on hand.

Stephanie from Pediatric Resource Center typically speaks at that.

I'll speak at that.

There'll be a couple other people, the judges.

So it's a big coming together.

It's Hearts Around the Courthouse is the name of the event.

And so that happens annually and it's the same thing.

We really want people to walk away from that same.

we didn't just do this for the month of April, May comes I'm not changing the script any, I'm still gonna be looking out for kids.

I'm still gonna be doing what I can on down the line.

So.

- Molly is wearing a very bright blue and there's a reason behind the blue and you probably can't notice it but there's a blue ribbon on her lapel as well.

Blue represents?

- It's just again, representing child abuse awareness for the month of April.

So you'll see a lot of blue, blue ribbons, blue pin wheels.

We've taken it another step where we're partnering with local bakeries to do blue cookies.

Really what we want to do in April, like Jeff said is it's not just April.

This is part of our mission is to raise awareness around child abuse.

But in April we really want it to be known and we want people to be talking about it.

Child abuse is happening, it's happening in our community, it's happening in your neighborhood.

It is.

I mean, that is the reality.

And a lot of people don't wanna talk about it 'cause it's just, it's not a great topic to talk about, right?

But we really want in April just for people to be educated, learn the facts surrounding child abuse and neglect, learn what is their responsibility.

Because prevention really is an adult, it's an adult responsibility.

You know, we can do what we can with kids in teaching them about safe adults and giving them preventative measures but we really wanna hit adults in the community.

- We're going to show you a couple of phone numbers in just a moment, but let me turn to Dr. Petrak just real quickly to talk about, yeah, the doctor needs to report child abuse, anyone in healthcare, the dentist, but what's my role?

What's my role?

And I don't mean necessarily I notice the child down the street may be abused but how do I go about being proactive?

- So anybody can call the child abuse hotline and I certainly encourage them to do so.

- Even if they, I may be wrong.

You know.

- Right.

So the law says you should call if you suspect.

And that goes for us medical folks too.

We don't have to know.

We just have to suspect that there may be abuse or neglect.

And so it's not our job to investigate or figure out what happened is our job to call the hotline so somebody can look into it.

And the whole goal is always the health and safety of that child.

So even a neighbor, a family member, you can call the hotline and then they will investigate.

So that is really the goal.

If we want our community's children to be healthy and safe, then as a neighbor or as a friend, a family member, calling the hotline is the way to do that.

Because then somebody can go and investigate and make sure the child gets to medical care if they need it, rather than just worrying and wondering yourself about whether they are or not abused.

- Let's pop up the phone number for the reporting child abuse.

This one is the national number.

This is the national child abuse hotline 800-4-A-Child, 800-4-A-Child.

And then in Illinois there's a different phone number.

That number is 800-252-2873, 252-2873.

In addition to that, we, there's also if you wanna use the website, you can go to childabuse.illinois.gov, childabuse.illinois.gov.

Those are three ways that you can help report child abuse in your neighborhood.

A closing thought, Dr. Petrak, if I'd like to end on a positive note, if at all possible?

- I think that, you know, as a community if we are really going to focus on the health and safety of our children, then, you know, we always say if you see something, say something.

So call, but also, you know, try to be the resource for somebody who looks like they're struggling.

If you know a family who needs a little help then help them.

- And with that, let me say thank you to Jeff Gress, who is with the Crittenton Centers in Peoria, to Molly Evans who is with Children's Advocacy Center in McLane County and also to Dr. Channing Petrak, who is with the Pediatric Resource Center in Peoria.

Thank you all three for the conversation and thank you for joining us.

We'll be back next time with another edition of AT Issue.

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