Our group traveled to the New York Foundling building to meet with Marion White, the Senior Program Director, Trevor Raushi, Kylie, and Laura Isherwood of the Child Abuse Prevention Program. We learned about how CAPP taught children about intense topics like sexual and physical abuse without traumatizing them. They created a fun puppet show to teach young children how to identify and report child abuse. Once they have the show is finished, children also have to option to speak to the CAPP puppeteers (who work as mandated child abuse reporters) and make a disclosure. The program is very simple and effective, and I really appreciate how it would not damage children but would instead help them save themselves. Marion talked about how they treat children using their crisis nursery, where children can stay for up to 28 days while their parents are unable to take care of them. She also talked about how they were connected to schools via guidance counselors or any other mental health professionals in the school. I learned a child’s school absences can be recognized as child abuse after they miss a certain amount of days. I thought that this was very important because when children are being abused and avoid school, it can be hard to get them help or realize that they may be experiencing abuse. The child abuse survivor we interviewed was out of school for many years, and so no one knew what was happening to them and no one could help. This visit had a great impact on our group because this was the first visit that was focused on child abuse prevention instead of only the horrors of child abuse. It showed us a positive way to help children from abuse that was easy to understand and entertaining. The puppet show was successful in detailing child abuse without being scary, and that’s the goal I have for our teach-in as well.
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