By Ray Hershel - email
February 2nd, 2012
HOLYOKE, Mass. (WGGB)– The recent allegations of child sex abuse at Penn State by a former assistant football coach have brought the issue front and center.
On Thursday, a group of professionals was learning to how prevent this kind of abusive behavior.
It is called the silent epidemic, child sexual abuse.
The Baystate Health Education Center in Holyoke hosted a program to address child sex abuse.
Among the participants was Dr. Stephen Boos, Medical Director of the Family Advocacy Center at Baystate Children’s Hospital,” I’ve seen 200 to 300 kids a year, for every kid I see there’s another three out there who never come forward, so this is a real secret problems,” says Dr. Boos.
Community volunteers are training as trainers themselves in a campaign called “Enough Abuse.”
It is designed to recognize, stop and prevent child sexual abuse according to Eva Montibello, Communications Manager for the Enough Abuse Campaign,” The thing about child sex abuse is that it can be prevented, there takes a certain amount of diligence, but to have that diligence you really need to be educated, and that’s what these people are learning,” says Montibello.
The second part of the curriculum is learning how to identifiy abusers as well as how to identify children who have been abused.
Adults for example should look for changes in behavior among children, and if a child tells you something, listen, says Dr. Boos, ” Children generally do not lie about this topic, listen carefully to what they say, make sure you’re listening to what they say, not what you’re afraid of, and then you’ll have to explore it further, and when it’s time to explore it further, I would urge anyone to involve a professional,” says Dr. Boos.
Experts like Dr. Stephen Boos say the focus should always remain on the children and their needs first,” Everyone is watching out for the children, the children come number one, and protecting the program and employee is not the first agenda, I think that’s the lesson of Penn State,” says Dr. Boos.
The “Enough Abuse” campaign is part of a statewide initiative developed with the support of the Massachusetts Citizens for Children and is supported by health professionals like Baystate Children’s Hospital.
