Morning Edition; Child Abuse Prevention Month

It's morning edition on KRPS. I'm Fred Fletcher-Fierro. April is winding down and with it, Child Abuse Prevention Month. This month, we've highlighted a few of the exceptional individuals and organizations working to keep children safe and their families together. Recently, I spoke with Executive Director Vicki Dudley and Desiree Brinstein, Community Outreach Coordinator of Children's Center in Jaunplin. You've likely driven past the center many times, located across the street from Eward Park. While the center's work is serious, Vicki says Dodd mistake the center for something else. Well, we're not a daycare center. First off, I'll share that, but we are a child advocacy center, and that model is replicated not only across the state of Missouri, but throughout the country. We are nationally accredited to work with law enforcement, children's division, juvenile office, our prosecutor's office, to help with the investigation of child abuse. According to data from the CDC, one in every seven children has experienced abuse on neglect in the past year. That's about 10 million kids nationwide.

The economic cost of child abuse in the U.S. since 2015 is over 420 billion dollars. According to Desiree, if you suspect child abuse, contact the Missouri Children's Division anytime. Manitory reporters or anybody can report it. If you suspect abuse, please do. There's a hotline from Missouri. It's 1-800-392-3738. And once you make the hotline call from there, children's division's man's that number and 24-7. And so from there, it's analyzed and decided like how to take take it from there. This is where children's center comes into the picture. Once it is identified by state officials that there is likely a case of child abuse to be investigated. Once we get here, our advocate greets the family. They explain the process to them what's going to happen next. And then the advocate helps them with paperwork, helps them with to link up to community resources. Community resources in a situation like this could be vital.

Depending on the case, the victim and their parent or family members may not have a safe place to stay or not food eat. Another factor is whether the individual accused of the abuse has been arrested. Vicki explains the next step in the process. Trained forensic interviewer comes and greets the child and brings the child back to our interview room. And that's a child-friendly room where the interview is recorded and observed in a separate location by law enforcement and children's division. So that the interview is recorded. The child only has to share their experience from one time and then that interview is sent with law enforcement to the prosecutor's office and it's logged in as evidence. There's no cost for all the services that children's center provides. Whether you have health insurance or not, everybody is treated equally by the nonprofit that is supported by businesses and

members of the community. In addition to their location in Joplin, they also operate in Nevada, Butler, and Monet. All of our services are available at no cost to the family. So we also provide a medical exam. So say there's allegations of physical abuse and there's obvious harm done to the child. A trained nurse practitioner who has very specialized training to look for signs and symptoms of abuse does a head-to-toe exam. We also do exams for sexual abuse. So we have specialized equipment to use for that. And then that medical exam is part of the investigation as well and all of those services are at no cost to the family. Vicki Dudley and Desiree Brainstine speaking on behalf of Children's Center, the nonprofit has locations in Joplin, Butler, Monet, and Nevada to learn more about how to donate and for more information. You can visit our website at krpsnews.com.

For KRPS, I'm Fred Fletcher-Fierro.