Monday, November 28, 2011

An Update and Summary: Prevent Child Abuse America's response to the Penn State case.

It has been three weeks since the story regarding the Penn State case first broke and as we turn our focus towards not only the healthy growth and development of all children, but healing the children who were victims of this abuse, we must redouble our effort to make sure this doesn't happen again.

We all have a role to play in prevention and Prevent Child Abuse America has been actively engaged in the national dialogue about this case starting with the release of “Talking Points, sexual abuse prevention tips and signs to look for” on November 5th, the day the story was first reported.

We worked with Prevent Child Abuse Pennsylvania to coordinate the Penn State’s community response to the case at the Penn State football team’s first home game on Saturday, November 12th.

We have been in conversation with a number of media outlets on a variety of topics related to the story including “mandatory reporting laws” which led to an appearance by James M. Hmurovich, President & CEO, Prevent Child Abuse America on the NBC Nightly News.

Finally, Prevent Child Abuse America has looked to focus on the larger themes of the story as well, including the specter of institutional failure and the promotion of healthy child development and distributed a Letter to the Editor analyzing this theme in more depth.

Going forward, we intend to stay focused on the prevention of sexual abuse and the expansion of innovative programming and policies that ensure we can prevent sexual abuse before it ever occurs. We will keep you apprised on what we are working on in this area. And we ask all of you to learn more, support this work and explores ways you can play a role in the healthy development of all children.

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