Prevent Child Abuse New York's Blog

Healthy Families New York Home Visiting Continued in Governor's Proposed Budget

2012-01-18T12:33:14-05:00

We are deeply pleased that Governor Cuomo’s budget includes $23.3 million for Healthy Families New York Home Visiting, allowing the program to continue improving the lives of vulnerable children and families in some of the state’s highest need communities.

The voluntary prenatal - early childhood program has a proven track record of better outcomes for children. Through guidance and support for at-risk expectant and new mothers in 39 high-risk communities, it begins at the earliest opportunity to improve children’s health, safety and learning.

The program’s statewide system of training, site support and evaluation assures the program’s quality and effectiveness. Cost savings begin immediately, with healthier babies delivered, and continue for years as children do better in school.

At the same time as we applaud this year’s continuation of services, we also look toward future expansion of support for New York’s youngest and most vulnerable citizens. Our system of home visiting services still serves only a small percentage of those who would benefit. We can and should build on the existing system by increasing the availability of other proven home visiting programs like Nurse Family Partnership, Parents As Teachers and Parent-Child-Home, as well as Healthy Families New York.

The prenatal and earliest childhood period provides a critical window of opportunity. The profound impact of infants’ health at birth and the care they receive - or don’t receive - during the first three years lasts throughout their lives. Regular visits by trained home visitors during this time shifts the trajectory of families’ lives and lays a strong foundation for children’s future, thereby preventing problems that require expensive intervention and remediation.

Greater investment in evidence-based and promising home visiting programs in New York State will strengthen families, improve children’s wellbeing and development, and save taxpayers money.

NY Sports Radio WFAN to Feature Discussion of Child Abuse Scandals

2011-12-07T18:14:54-05:00

NY Sports Radio WFAN host Bob Salter will explore the effects of the Penn State and Syracuse University child sex abuse scandals with with Anthony Zenkus, education director at the Coalition Against Child Abuse and Neglect, a member of PCANY's Prevention Network, Sunday, December 11, 6 a.m. to 7:30 a.m.

WFAN is the world's first 24-hour all sport radio station and the leader in its field. It can be heard on 660 AM.

Help Raise Funds for PCANY When You Shop Online This Holiday Season

2011-12-06T13:43:44-05:00

There are many ways to help Prevent Child Abuse New York throughout the year. The following are two simple ways to raise money while you do your holiday shopping online.

IGive
Create your free iGive account. After that, all you need do is shop through the iGive.com website, newsletters, or install the optional iGive Button* to make sure you never miss an opportunity to raise money when you shop online. It’s all automatic, and it's all free of charge. iGive lets you control your membership information with a private password. You can review your store visits and purchase/donation history, and confirm the total amount raised and distributed to your cause. iGive values your privacy and will never release shopper information without consent. And there are no hidden fees or extra costs when you shop through iGive.

Start iGiving at: www.iGive.com/PCANY

GoodSearch, GoodShop. Good Dining
Use GoodSearch when you search the interent – they will donate a penny to PCANY every time you do

Use GoodShop.com when you shop online – they work with more than 2,500 major brands, have over 100,000 coupons and donate a percentage of every purchase you make to PCANY

Enroll in the GoodDining.com they will donate up to 6% of every dollar you spend when you eat at one of 10,000 participating restaurants

Please join our community on GoodSearch.com and help us raise money for our mission. Get started by clicking the “Become a Supporter” button on our profile page here!

2012 NYS Child Abuse Prevention Conference: Call for Workshop Proposals

2011-12-05T15:17:43-05:00

Prevent Child Abuse New York is pleased to announce Diverse Paths, Common Dreams, the 2012 New York State Child Abuse Prevention Conference . Our 17th annual event will be held April 16-18, 2012, at the Marriott Hotel in Albany. Plenary session speakers Include:

Victor Bernstein, PhD., School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, It Sounds So Easy but It's So Hard To Do: Developing Effective Working Relationships with Families Living in Difficult Circumstances
Donna Beegle, Ed.D., Speaker, Trainer & Author, Communication Across Barriers, We CAN Make a Difference for Children and Families Living in the Crisis of Proverty
Bryan Specht, Founder, Promised Land Society and Awful Grace Project, National Board Member, Prevent Child Abuse America, Awful Grace: Resiliency, Wisdom, and the Hope of Prevention

We are now accepting workshop proposals that focus on developing the knowledge and expertise needed by practitioners in today’s complex environment. Preference is given to presentations that are highly interactive, include strategies to engage the audience, and leave participants with new skills and learning they can immediately put to use in their jobs, in their homes, and in their communities.

Workshop tracks include:

Parent/Caregiver Education and Support
Effective Prevention Strategies
Skills for Direct Services Provision
Collaboration and Implementation within and across Systems
Not-for-Profit Management and Leadership

For more information and instructions for submitting a proposal, please refer to the Call for Workshop Proposals .

The deadline for submission has been extended to December 16, 2011. Please email or call Jennifer Dailey, jdailey@preventchildabuseny.org, 518-445-1273, with any questions.

Happy Thanksgiving from Prevent Child Abuse New York

2011-11-18T05:13:00-05:00

Next week, America's families will gather to celebrate Thanksgiving. The feast usually takes center stage, but the true purpose of Thanksgiving is to express gratitude for our most precious treasures: family and friends, health and wellness, food and shelter.

Unfortunately, many families have little to be thankful for this holiday. For the past few years, we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of families falling into poverty. These families suffer with insufficient access to food, shelter, health care and other necessities.

For those of us fortunate enough to celebrate Thanksgiving with the warmth of family, friends and a feast, one of the best ways to give thanks is to give back. Get your whole family involved, and use the Thanksgiving season as an opportunity to teach the kids in your life about the importance of gratitude and generosity. Here are some tips to get you started.

Take inventory. Before the holiday season shifts into overdrive, ask every member of your family to pick an item (toys, clothing, or household goods) to donate to a local organization that serves homeless or underprivileged families.

Do a family project. Make a Thanksgiving tree out of construction paper. Have each member of the family write down what they are thankful for on the leaves.

Share the bounty. The holidays can be an especially grim time for families struggling to make ends meet. Your donation to a local food bank or food pantry can help make Thanksgiving special for a family in need. The New York State Food Bank Association can direct you to your local food bank. You can also call our Parent Helpline at 1-800-CHILDREN or e-mail us for a referral to a food pantry near you.

Spread the love. Invite a neighbor or family friend to your Thanksgiving feast. The more the merrier!

Talk to your children about how to show thanks. Have them write a thank you note to teachers, grandparents, babysitters or others who have given them love and special attention.

Thank your kids! Tell your children how special they are. Show them that you're thankful for them by giving them extra hugs, kisses and special notes of appreciation.

Best wishes for a joyous and generous Thanksgiving from Prevent Child Abuse New York!

Two Quick Thoughts About Penn State

2011-11-11T17:33:44-05:00

If you’ve read about the accusations against Penn State’s former football coach, you realize that children could have been saved from sexual abuse if the person who observed an incident - or any of those who were told about it - had contacted law enforcement. So a reminder for those who live and work in New York State: report child abuse and maltreatment to our state’s child abuse hotline at 1-800-342-7472. However, call 911 or your local police department immediately if you witness a child being abused, as happened at Penn State.

Just as important, perhaps even more so, we must stop this kind of harm from occurring in the first place. Child sexual abuse can be prevented when parents and other adults in the community understand the realities of child sexual abuse and have tools to protect children. It is seldom “stranger danger,” but almost always someone close to the child and family. Our friends at Enough Abuse offer information and ideas in Six Prevention Tips to help all of us meet our responsibility to protect our children. We encourage you to read them and to share them with your friends, family and community.

Protecting Kids From Sexual Abuse, Written by Melanie Blow

2011-11-10T10:03:11-05:00

Two days before Halloween, MSNBC reported that paroled California sex offenders who have no permanent home partly because of a state law that bans them from living near schools or parks, will be under supervision to make sure they have no contact with children out trick-or-treating.

View MSNBC Article Here

I am always amazed how the movement to raise awareness about child sexual abuse is a victim of its own success, and this article underscored that point. Residency laws prohibiting sex offenders from living within a certain distance of places frequented by children, leading to offenders becoming homeless, are an example of this.

The first thing I thought as I read this article is that it must be harder to keep tabs on a homeless or transient sex offender than it is for one who has a fixed address and a landlord. The second thing I thought of is how this law may be putting more children at risk by encouraging sex offenders to live with family and friends. As background, it’s important to realize that most sex offenders preying upon children don’t kidnap their victims. Rather, they rely on gaining the trust of their victims and their victims’ families, and eventually use manipulation, threats or the power inherent to an adult-child relationship to keep their victims quiet. Residency laws largely ignore this fact, assuming that keeping sex offenders physically away from large groups of children keeps offenders from gaining access to them.

So how do sex offenders gain access to children? Some become parents, foster parents or step parents. Some work with children in a professional capacity (such as teachers), or a volunteer capacity (such as scout leaders). Some are given access to children through their extended family or community- they become that nice person who’s always willing to babysit. Some offenders may resort to hanging out in parks and near schools to befriend children, but the aforementioned techniques are surprisingly effective.

We rarely think of child sex offenders as people with parents, siblings and significant others. It’s very easy to demonize people who do acts so destructive and harming. But sex offenders do have families, and these families often have trouble reconciling the person they love with an action they don’t understand. Often these families rely on our society’s general ignorance about CSA to convince themselves of their loved one’s innocence, or if not innocence, their overall goodness and reformability. The loved ones of sex offenders will usually either declare the innocence of the offender of will say how much they’ve changed since their conviction. People do change, but their basic patterns of sexual attraction rarely do. While there are modalities of therapy that can diminish a sex offender’s attraction towards children and teach them skills to keep from re-offending, the leading professional opinion is that someone who has sexually abused children as an adult should never be trusted alone with children. This is why policies that tacitly encourage sex offenders to live with family carry a hidden risk- by living with people who are the most likely to downplay their offenses, and are least likely enforce a “not-to-be-left-alone-with-children” rule, children are often placed at risk.

How can we keep children safe, now that we’ve ruled out residency restrictions and increased supervision on Halloween? Factual, evidence-based information about CSA needs to be ingrained in our culture, and into the policies of every institution dealing with children. Everyone working for children in our court system needs to know even more about CSA than the general public, because having tough laws does no good if judges don’t understand the complex dynamic of sexual abuse well enough to convict guilty parties. Sex offenders often manage to keep their victims from disclosing their abuse for years- often until the survivors are adults. Many states have statute of limitations on the prosecution of child sexual abuse that essentially keeps adults from seeking justice for their victimization. This needs to change. Any time a pedophile gets convicted, it interrupts their cycle of child molestation. It can also result in them getting treatment, and getting placed on a sex offender registry.

I got to pass out candy to trick-or-treaters this Halloween. As I watched the pint-sized princesses and super heros come and go, I found myself hoping that Halloween is the only time in their lives when they find themselves begging for food. I hoped their futures would never drain them of the creativity and enthusiasm they displayed. I hoped the un-costumed caretakers I saw watching them on the sidewalk weren’t true monsters. But somehow, the notion that a sex offender may be playing the role of human candy dispenser didn’t worry me too much.

NYSCASA Call for Workshop Proposals

2011-11-08T15:17:57-05:00

The New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault (NYSCASA) is seeking proposals for a multi-day, multi-track statewide Sexual Assault Prevention and Intervention conference. The conference is being held May 9-10, 2012 in Albany, NY, which will mark the agency’s 25^th anniversary.

We anticipate approximately 200 advocacy, health care, law enforcement, mental health, criminal justice, campus, and other allied professionals to attend the conference.

We welcome proposals that address a wide range of sexual assault prevention and intervention topics including but not limited to: self-care for victim service professionals; culturally competent approaches with traditionally underserved populations; engaging men to address sexual violence; bystander intervention strategies; criminal justice issues; systems advocacy and policy change; work on campuses; and primary prevention of sexual violence. Please consider sharing your knowledge of best practices, current trends, and cutting edge topics.

For more information: Download NYSCASA_Conference_Request for Workshop Proposals (Word document) or contact NYSCASA at 518-482-4222

Building a Movement for America's Children

2011-10-26T22:44:32-04:00

Prevent Child Abuse New York and the State University at Albany School of Social Welfare co-hosted a community forum to discuss what children need for healthy growth and development. A panel of local champions for children were invited to participate in an open conversation with the community.

The panelists consisted of: Deborah Benson Executive Director of the NYS Council on Children and Families, Senator Neil Breslin State of New York’s 46th District, Carolyn McLaughlin President of the City of Albany Common Council and Hector Ramirez Executive Vice President of the Northeast Parent and Child Society.

Jim Hmurovich the President and CEO of Prevent Child Abuse America traveled to New York to lead the day. The event proved to be crucial in rallying government officials, social welfare students, and practitioners around a common solution to ensure healthy growth and development for children.

The solution seemed to be clear, prevention was the answer. However, prevention can come in various forms just as Carol McLaughlin stated, "They just want to know somebody cares, that young man that's on the street, involved in a gang. Somebody has told him his buddies have told him we care about you. How easy it would be if we did that. If they had someone at home who would do that for them. It would prevent them for looking for it somewhere else."

To view the coverage of the event CLICK HERE

Walk for Children: Last Minute Reminders

2011-10-14T06:21:00-04:00

We're ready for the Walk for Children tomorrow! The kids' games and activities are packed, the food is ordered, and the prizes are being packaged and wrapped at this very moment. In addition to having fun tomorrow, I hope you'll have a chance to learn more about our work. We'll have our educational materials available, as well as our signature line of Pinwheels for Prevention products

Here are some last-minute reminders as you prepare for the big day:

Registration opens at 10 a.m. inside the Lake House in Washington Park. You'll find a map of Washington Park and the streets around it on our web site.
The children's games and activities also start at 10. The walk is a rain or shine event.
Please bring your sponsorship cash and checks and turn them in when you register. Please be sure your name and team name, if you have one, is written on your collection envelope.
The walk kicks off around 11:15. We will walk once around the park. After the walk, please join us at the Lake House for refreshments and the awarding of fundraising and raffle prizes.
There's still time to raise money! A last minute e-mail or phone call to potential sponsors could make a big difference. Remember, every walker who raises over $50 gets a Walk for Children T-shirt.

Thank you for everything you're doing to prevent child abuse and neglect!