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Pinwheels planted for child abuse prevention

Star Beacon - 4/12/2018

April 12--JEFFERSON -- This April, the blue-and-white pinwheels dotting the lawn of the old county courthouse in recognition of National Child Abuse Prevention Month don't represent reported child abuse or neglect cases in the county -- rather, the "happy childhoods that we want for all children," officials said.

"We all play a role in making sure every child grows up feeling safe and loved," Ashtabula County Children Services Board Executive Director Tania Burnett said to those gathered at the courthouse steps Wednesday afternoon to plant the pinwheels.

"Coaches, friends, teachers, bus drivers, pastors, family, foster parents, babysitters ... whatever your role is in a child's life, please remember that you have the opportunity to be the one person that they have to look up to and that you can make a difference in their life."

Last year, the board received more than 2,500 calls regarding child welfare concerns, and made close to 250 new court filings for emergency child custody in those cases. In 2017, the agency averaged about 230 children in out-of-home placement, 35 more than 2016's average and 82 more than 2015's.

Those who called the board to report child abuse or neglect -- "that's somebody being a voice for a child and trying to have a positive impact on their life, too," Burnett said. She said she

hopes Wednesday's event reminds people child abuse prevention is a "community-wide issue."

"By the time we get the call, it's too late," she said. "So we need to do things before it gets to the point of calling children services -- things like mentoring, coaching, just being that friendly person the kid can turn to."

A state representative of child advocacy group Bikers Against Child Abuse, who goes by the moniker "Bull," said Wednesday since 2010, about 130 children have been reportedly killed in school shootings, but more than 14,000 children have died as a result of child abuse or neglect.

"Every 30 minutes in the state of Ohio, a child is abused or neglected," he said.

County Juvenile Court Judge Albert Camplese, whose court has seen a dramatic spike in the number of emergency child custody hearings since 2015, said the pinwheels help keep the issue in the public eye -- "to remind everyone that we have a role to play."

"Childhood trauma has a crippling effect throughout the child's life," he said. "Not only does it traumatize them at that stage in their life, but it has a tendency to repeat itself.

"I think that the more we're attuned to identifying it and playing an active role in intervening, then the better off we're going to as a society," Camplese said. "It's about building strong children and strong families."

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(c)2018 the Star Beacon (Ashtabula, Ohio)

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