Child Abuse Prevention Month

Presented By Hometown-Motors, Inc.

Pictured are Julie Oates, former Executive Director of the Child Protection Center and Ross County Prosecuting Attorney Jeffrey Marks during the 2019 Pinwheels for Prevention planting ceremony. Dan Ramey/Litter Media

The month of April is Child Abuse Prevention Awareness Month, which began this observance in 1983.

Since then, April has been a time to acknowledge the importance of families and the community working together to prevent child abuse.

In the year 2015, the United States, along with the District of Columbus and Puerto Rico reported that an estimated 683,000 children were victims of child abuse or neglect and 1,670 children died as a result of abuse or neglect.

The majority of child abuse cases stemmed from situations and conditions that are preventable when community programs and systems are engaged, supportive, and include services focusing on parental resilience, trauma history, nurturing and attachment, social connections, knowledge about parenting and child development, social and emotional competence of children, and concrete supports for parents.

The Child Protection Center, which is based in Chillicothe, will be conducting their annual observance at noon Tuesday, April 6th. This local event brings attention to the child abuse reports made each year in Ross County and includes the placing of pinwheels at the head of Yoctangee Park, numbering the local cases of abuse received in the previous year.

In the 2019 observance, there were 1,592 reports of abuse from the year 2018.

The public is encouraged to attend.