It's something many people focus on almost in isolation when a tragic story shows up on the morning shows, but it's almost too easy to miss the fuller, devastating, horrifying picture: each year, more than three million children in the United States are reported as victims of child abuse and neglect. More than 70,000 of those cases are from Massachusetts alone.
And even more tragically, at least 1,700 of those forgotten children lose their lives each year in our country -- most before they even turn four years old.
It would shock most Americans to hear the awful truth that the United States ranks highest in child abuse fatalities of any industrialized nation.
But as March turns to April and we approach National Child Abuse Prevention Month, we would do well to look at this disturbing picture nationally, and recommit ourselves to ending this vicious cycle and fighting for every child too young to speak for themselves.
Today, the United States -- literally -- has absolutely no comprehensive strategy to address child abuse fatalities.
We also have tolerated dismal standards for reporting these fatalities, leaving many horrors largely underreported.
That's why Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine) and I recently got together to introduce the Protect Our Kids Act, a bipartisan effort to try and fight back on behalf of the children who are the victims of these heinous crimes.
The Protect Our Kids Act would establish a Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities. That commission would bring together the top experts in the field to develop a national strategy for reducing child abuse and neglect fatalities and provide comprehensive recommendations for all levels of government. It will analyze the effectiveness of existing programs designed to prevent or identify maltreatment deaths and tell us what works and what doesn't.
One place I hope the Commission will look to see "what's working" is right at home in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Children's Alliance, along with our state's strong network of Children's Advocacy Centers, serve thousands of children each year to keep them safe from abuse, maltreatment, and neglect.
The loss of even one child to abuse is one child too many. That's why I'm grateful to the National Coalition to End Child Abuse Deaths for partnering with us in our effort to develop a national strategy to end the cycle of child abuse and deaths.
In our country, a child is abused or neglected every 36 seconds, and, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, only 40 percent of abused children receive the services they need. The Protect Our Kids Act can be the catalyst we need to begin to speak out more effectively for children who cannot speak up on their own. This April, as we mark National Child Abuse Prevention Month, I hope more and more of our colleagues will join me and Senator Collins in this first step to end this national abomination once and for all.
Follow Sen. John Kerry on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JohnKerry
http://justiceforamy.wordpress.com/about/
We also have a petition to the judge, governor and the head of the Florida DCF:
http://www.change.org/petitions/justice-for-amy
Thank you for the excellent article and the links that came from the commentators.
There are 42 million adult survivors of child abuse in the US, more than the sum total of heart and cancer patients. In 2011, the BBC aired, "America's Child Death Shame," reporting, the US has the highest child abuse in the industrialized world.
The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study by the CDC and Kaiser finds a causal link between child abuse and most major (1) medical issues (heart disease, COPD, obesity, AIDS), (2) societal problems (substance abuse, teen pregnancy, criminal behavior and (3) mental illness.
Children are the core of our future prosperity, safety and well-being. Renowned psychiatrist, Carl Menninger, said, "What we do to our children, they do to society."
Since child abuse happens on all socioeconomic levels, many abused children from moneyed families become our leaders. No one can say the actions requiring the $800 billion bail-out were mentally healthy.
Child abuse is preventable. The solution: We are the only animal not knowing how to instinctively parent well. We need parenting and emotional intelligence education. The UK is doing it, decreasing their jail populations, addiction problems and medical costs--and increasing their Gross National Well-being!
Elizabeth Woodsmall, Masters Student, Communications, FSU
Without my consent people have posted on the web my letter dated March 26, 2012 to Los Angeles County DCFS Director Philip Browning and Los Angeles Board of Supervisors regarding these violations of the laws. To this date they are still continuing to violate and have conspired to commit fraud to the court. The court believes what DCFS has stated in their documents and disregarding the true facts. So having a National Child Abuse Prevention Month doesn’t change a thing! What you and other members of congress really need to do is to follow the footsteps of former Senator Nancy Schafer’s and advocate making a change with DCFS or CPS to protect my granddaugter and other children facing the same problems.
Senator Kerry, if you are interested in helping our granddaughter and other children of this country I would be happy to send you all the many complaints letters, court documents, and testimony for your review. Just give me a call or better yet email me. rperez@wmelab.com Sorry for my grammar!
Your party is spending us broke and YOU have not voted on a budget in about 3 years preferring to harm all our children with 1.3 trillion dollar a year deficits instead of making the hard choices for our children and giving us a fiscally responsible government.
In three years you and Obama have managed to double the Bush deficits and it took Bush 8 years to create those deficits.
You have us on a path to destruction and come to us with a feel good piece about children.
Take Care of Business. Give us responsible government. Stop spending us broke.
Catholic Charities
Birthright of Montgomery County
Gabriel Project
Shady Grove Pregnancy Center
Centro Tepayac
It you would like to see any more, let me know, I would be happy to educate. Thanks!
I agree that an end to this "national abomination" is necessary, and cannot happen soon enough. I agree that we must fight for every child too young to speak for themselves.
Until we begin to acknowledge that all pre-born children should be included in this, we will, I am afraid, not be able to scratch the surface of abuse and violence done to our children in this country.
If there was a simple "workable alternative" I would be out lobbying for it instead of on here posting, though I just laid out the basics of what a better direction would be in my responses to the post below this one. The one thing I didn't mention there was the need to reconstruct the foster care system such that it is budget neutral, and not a profitable system; the rest I pretty much hit on already.
And just because I do not have a workable alternative drawn up doesn't mean we do something that will end up making things worse!
To really address this there would have to be a complete restructuring of custody systems, including an effective way that friends or relatives could intervene very directly and at times even take custody without the legal mess that currently stands in the way. You would also have to find a way to overhaul the disastrous social services bureaucracy. I am not going to go into detail, but social workers are hit and miss in terms of their quality, and poor ones make bad situations worse.
You need to construct a system with an extremely high degree of flexibility and that puts to power to make decisions over the child's welfare in the hands of those whom are intimately aware of the actual conditions in that child's life as opposed to bureaucrats and courts which are too fare removed from the situation.
But that leaves the problem of how to insure that that power is not abused; and how to make sure that the people given that power actually are aware; and how to establish this kind of practical system in a society attached to the rule of law through the judiciary.
Honestly, there is no good answer.... but adding another level of bureaucracy will hurt, not help.
No child born in Mississippi should have a greater likelihood of death from abuse and/or neglect than a child in Massachusetts. They are all American kids. Let's make sure every one of them is treated that way!
Go to www.everychildmatters.org so your voice can be heard by signing a petition in support of the "Protect Our Kids Act."
Abuse also happens in the system and penalties are never commensurate with the impact on the children which are life long in most cases.
The system itself needs to be scrutinized as it's mostly subcontracted out to private entities who while claiming to be non-profit charge some pretty hefty monthly fees; one of which I saw personally was in excess of 4000 per month, and it wasn't a hospital, rather a residential facility.
I only throw this out for consideration because I grew up in the system for 8 years of my life and my brother spent 14 years. More eyes need to watch, and more people need to be imprisoned, or worse because many children never recover and suffer from drug or alcohol abuse, or repeat the cycle and become offenders themselves.