On November 5, our Social Justice group met with the founder and director of an orga
nization called Child Abuse Prevention Program, located in Greenwich Village. This was our first fieldwork and was set up as an interview with Marian White, who is very involved with making a change for children who are faced with abuse. Our experience at CAPP was very successful and the people were very friendly. We walked into a welcoming building and were introduced at the front by Mrs. White. She then led us into a room lined with colorful pictures made by children from foster cares. In this room, we were shown a video of the main purpose of the organization and videos of school visits. Although the sound was not working, it was very easy to see how passionate the workers were about the topic and how interested the children were in the shows. We then passed through offices to go upstairs to the room where we interviewed her in. The building was very empty because all of the teams were out doing the puppet shows at different schools. This emptiness somehow showed me how active this organization was and the thought of this made me smile. The goal for this field work was to expand our knowledge about the process of helping children who unfortunately are suffering from abuse. CAPP has a very individual way of helping children, through visual and interactive work. They use puppets to demonstrate situations where the puppets face and react to abuse in many forms. If children have experienced anything like the puppets, it is required for the school guidance counselor to focus on this child. My group asked the woman, Marian White, about the organization’s background and goals. We learned many new things about both sides, children and abusers. For example, never ask an abused child why. It is not their responsibility to know why these things are happening to them. We also learned about the grooming process and how pedifiles convince themselves it is acceptable to do these awful things. The emotions felt by my group ranged from respect, hope, and thankfulness to shock and sadness. Overall, I felt that this field work was very successful and went smoothly.
