Community walks to make statement against child abuse
As a stiff breeze blew the blue and silver pin wheels round and round, a small crowd gathered at the Price Peace Garden on Tuesday afternoon for a walk. This was no ordinary walk, the people involved were all there to make a statement against child abuse and to increase the awareness of community involvement as a way to prevent it.
Last year there were 311 individual children counted as confirmed abuse cases. Fifty-nine cases were confirmed in Emery County. This doesn't include the cases that have not been discovered yet.
The walk was organized by the Family Support and Children's Justice Center(FS/CJC) in Price. The FS/CJC's mission is to work towards the prevention and healing for victims of child abuse. The Center serves both Carbon and Emery Counties.
The Center is actually two different agencies. The Family Support side is focused on prevention with its primary service the 24/7 Crisis Nursery. Anyone can use the nursery, free of charge, to take a break from the stresses of raising kids. It is not a spy for the Division of Family services, but a respite time to keep families from reaching a breaking point when life pressures add to the already stresses of family.
The Children's Justice Center helps coordinate the investigations of report child sexual abuse. It also makes training available for all the professionals that are involved with finding the truth.
Despite the devastating numbers of children in our community that have suffered at the hands of adults they trusted, the center continues to make a difference. Where it takes only one person to abuse a child, it takes a community to prevent it. The Center reaches out, in many ways to keep the community a part of the solution. They are looking forward to the day they can report that there were no children abused in Carbon or Emery County in the past year.
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