The Children's Advocacy Center of Jackson County

Tag: children

  • How long will we look the other way

    By Danielle Ellison of Medford, Oregon

     

    How do we value the life of a child? How do you put a price on Christmas morning, the first day of school, snow angels in the winter, cannonballs in the summer, and high school graduation?

    I ask because my son was nearly robbed of these memorable childhood moments. On Sept. 22, 2014, my life changed forever. Horrible abuse had been taking place in my absence, and on that fateful day in September a bright light was shed on a dark issue.

    My 3-month-old son was a victim of child abuse, more specifically shaken baby syndrome. His future is unclear, and each day I awake wondering if today is the day that will unveil permanent damage, left behind by the brain injury inflicted by his abuser.

    Many other children have not been as fortunate as my son; children left devastated, fighting fearlessly to overcome, to heal, to live. When they do live, they are often left blind, deaf, unable to walk or attached to feeding tubes. Many are left plagued with seizures, impaired motor skills, impaired speech and cognitive disabilities.

    While these children are suffering, trying to find the silver lining of this dark cloud, the ones responsible are minimally punished. All too often, the ones who are shattering our youth are serving minimum sentences for inflicting maximum pain, and frequently permanent damage.

    These are atrocious crimes, committed against the most defenseless victims. Any bail amount is intolerable. After searching the inmate list of the Jackson County Jail, and comparing bail amounts of different cases, I was left confused and disappointed. How is it that a person can nearly kill an innocent, defenseless infant and his bail be set at an amount that is three times lower than that of a person being charged with a robbery where no one was injured?

    What kind of message does that send? To me, it sends a message that says material objects as a whole are more valuable than the life and future of a child.

    No amount of money will erase cerebral palsy. It will never give the sight of the sun setting to that child left blind, or the sound of the rain falling to that child left deaf. Our children are our most valuable blessings. When are we going to start protecting them?

    These crimes are crippling our youth. Yet, the culprits responsible often are walking away with a slap on the wrist. A few years ago, a 5-week-old baby girl was severely abused at the hands of her own father. She was violently shaken on numerous occasions. She was left severely brain damaged, and her development halted, leaving her 5 weeks old forever.

    She fought like a warrior for nine years, and then, 10 days short of her 10th birthday, she passed. Her abuser was found incompetent to stand trial because he had a low IQ. This man held down a job, drove a car and lived a normal adult life. Justice was never served for this innocent child.

    In another instance, nearly two years ago a 2-month-old boy’s life was changed forever. This infant, at the most defenseless time in his life, was strangled, shaken and beaten. These attacks caused severe brain bleeding and 25 fractured bones all over his body.

    Now nearing his second birthday, this child should be learning his ABCs, potty training and jumping on his mommy’s bed. Instead he is plagued with seizures, and developmental delays. He is unable to sit up on his own, and has been diagnosed with epilepsy and cerebral palsy. A young life was devastated before it began to flourish, and somehow, some way, three years seemed an appropriate sentence for his abuser. I cannot ignore that.

    Both of these examples are of local children, and they only scratch the surface. There are many more. Our children deserve the right to experience the simple joys in life, not just its sorrows.

    I am a single mother of two boys and understand that there are moments in parenting where you feel like crossing that line out of frustration, but you just can’t do it. My question is, when are the consequences of these actions going to be substantial enough to force caregivers to walk away in those moments of frustration? When are we going to say “no more?” These are not cases of two adults fighting, or vengeance being sought. This is innocence in its purest form, being destroyed.

     

  • The deafening silence surrounding abused children

    By Tammi Pitzen

    I am the newly hired Executive Director at the Children’s Advocacy Center of Jackson County.  I have spent the last twenty three years working to protect children from abuse.  One can imagine the stories that I have heard in what I refer to as “the small little room”.  The small little room is a special room set up with video and audio recording capabilities and I spent a large part of the last few years in one of these rooms talking with children about events that have happened in their lives. Most of these events are abusive in nature.

    I have had many people over the years ask me how I could do such a depressing job.  How could I sit in that room with a child telling me about terrible things that have happened to them and still be able to sleep at night?

    I usually tell them  it is the things that I don’t hear that keep me up at night.  It is the silence that surrounds most abused children that I find deafening. 

    I know through research that approximately thirty percent of children who are abused never tell their story.  This statistic has haunted me throughout my career. Why will they not tell?  What can we do that will help them to tell? I have asked some children, “What made you not tell?” Their answer?  “No one ever asked!”

    Then the next question is, “Why not?” Adults tell me all the time, “I don’t know what to ask.”  They tell me, “I don’t want to make my child paranoid or afraid.”

    This is the part that I find puzzling.  Children look to adults to protect them and to let them know what is right and what is wrong.  What message are we giving them when we are still sending messages through our actions or lack of actions that it is not okay to talk about sexual abuse?  Sexual abuse happens in secrecy.  Sexual abuse is allowed to continue to happen through silence.  I just don’t understand why we as adults want to give all the power to perpetrators and none of it to our children.  After twenty three years of experience and training in the field of child abuse I still have no answers.

    My wish for all children is that they have adults in their lives that will take the time to learn what the signs of abuse are and learn what to do when they see them.

    My wish for all children is that they have adults in their lives who will take the initiative to learn what questions to ask their children so they can take steps to protect them.

    We ask ourselves what has happened that the world have become so unsafe for our children.  The answer is that we as adults have not done enough to empower children.  We have not done enough to keep our children safe. 

    My question to you is what will you do today to reduce the risk of sexual abuse of a child in your life?

    Sign up to take a class through the Children’s Advocacy Center to learn about child abuse prevention. We have a new class every month. Our next one is Monday, Jan. 27th, 4-7 pm at the CAC. To register, contact Shandi at ssmith@cacjc.org or call: 541-734-5437.

    Tammi