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Share the Spirit: Concord agency takes pain out of being a kid
By Rick Hurd
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 12/31/2011 08:10:15 PM PST
Updated: 01/02/2012 09:57:09 PM PST
Rose Marie Wallace, right, a staff member at the Child Abuse Prevention Council, visits
In the worst times, Claudia Gonzalez's bedroom doubled as a cave. Not much bigger than four office cubicles pushed together, the small space in the Concord apartment served as Gonzalez's sanctuary, her living quarters and her escape.
She left Jalisco, Mexico, in 2000, with her boyfriend, "because I wanted a better life," and they settled in Concord. By 2001, she was pregnant with her first daughter. She didn't speak English. She didn't know her neighbors. She barely saw her boyfriend.
So the bedroom became home. For two years, she said, she never left it.
"And without support," she said, "I'd still be in there."
That support came largely from the Child Abuse Prevention Council of Contra Costa County, part of Bay Area News Group's annual Share the Spirit campaign.
Today, Gonzalez, 29, is a student at Diablo Valley College, studying childhood development. Her English is not as steady as she'd like it to be, but she is fluent enough to hold a steady conversation with someone not well-versed in Spanish.
Gonzalez is raising three children -- daughters Ariadna, 10, and Amber, 6 months; and son, Jordy, 4 -- with their father, and she says her relationships with all of them are stronger than ever.
She also said that without the Child Abuse Prevention Council, her story would be a far darker tale.
"Mainly, I just have to say thank you because the program has helped change me as a person, as a mother and as a spouse," she
said. "They gave me support and taught me skills, and that's one of the reasons why I'm in school now, so that I can teach those skills to others."
The Concord-based agency provides safety net programs for at-risk families in a bid to reduce neglect and abuse, and executive director Carol Carrillo said more than 700 children and their families were educated last year.
"Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, 'Today, I'm going to abuse my kid. Today, I'm going to be a bad parent,' " Carrillo said. "But what you have are patterns of behavior that are established and sometimes can last generations, and those are the cycles that need to be broken.
"You show people another way and give them the skills and the support they need."
The Child Abuse Prevention Council provided 6,000 pieces of parenting and resources information to families last year, Carrillo said, from fliers to pamphlets to poster contests at public schools. The agency uses 2,588 teachers, child care providers, social workers and health care providers to work with children and parents, Carrillo said.
The goal, Carrillo said, is to equip families with the skills to see what child abuse is, the courage to speak up about it when they see it and the power to tackle it elsewhere.
"Our program teaches parents alternative ways of dealing with things," said Maggie Velasco, the agency's program director. "The goal is that through educational tools, we strengthen the whole family."
Gonzalez will vouch for it. She said she no longer engages in battles with Ariadna over how to deal with the pressures Ariadna says she feels to excel in school. Nor does Gonzalez feel as overwhelmed about the addition of Amber, whose arrival in June meant more demands and less sleep for mom.
"Happier" is how Ariadna puts the family dynamic, while smiling. "Better."
"The goal is to build mutual respect between parent and child," said Rose Marie Wallace, a family support specialist. "As parents, we often think that because we know what's best, that we also know their feelings. We try to develop empathy between the children and adults. Quite often, we don't treat them as our equals, and that's where the communication barrier occurs."
And when the barrier is removed, she said, the result can be drastic.
"Mainly," Gonzalez said, "my behavior is different than before. Because my behavior is different, the behavior for my kids is different. This is what the program has taught us. There are other ways than you learned or are used to. Again, all I can say to them is thank you."
Contact Rick Hurd at 925-945-4780 and follow him on Twitter at Twitter.com/3rdERH.
share the spirit
The Share the Spirit campaign, sponsored by Bay Area News Group, benefits nonprofit agencies in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. Readers who wish to help can clip the coupon accompanying this story and send it to the address printed on it. The Volunteer Center of the East Bay administers the fund. Readers with questions and corporations interested in making large contributions may contact the Volunteer Center at 925-472-5760.
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CoCo social worker: Penn State child abuse allegations shed light on difficult issue
By Jonathan Morales
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 12/01/2011 10:37:22 AM PST
Updated: 12/01/2011 10:37:23 AM PST
For Carol Carrillo, if there's a silver lining to the horrifying allegations of child abuse at Pennsylvania State University, it's that people are now talking about a difficult issue.
"It raised the awareness of child sexual abuse, and that's pretty important awareness," said Carrillo, executive director of the Child Abuse Prevention Council of Contra Costa County. "With child abuse, most people think that it doesn't happen in their communities, it doesn't happen in their families, it happens out there somewhere else, when indeed it crosses all cultural, racial, economic boundaries."
The Child Abuse Prevention Council, which gets funding from the county and state and through private donations, works with schools and other organizations throughout the county to provide educational outreach, child safety information and training for those state law designates as required to report suspected child abuse.
"Pretty much where parents gather, that's where we like to be," Carrillo said. She hopes the Penn State situation will shine light on the issue of child abuse and make people aware of local resources to help prevent and respond to it.
More than 11,000 children were affected by child abuse in 2010, according to data from Contra Costa Children and Family Services. Of those, 1,063 were victims of sexual abuse. Carrillo says the numbers are likely higher in reality because much abuse goes unreported.
California state law requires anyone who comes into contact with children during the course of their job to report suspected abuse to Child Protection Services or the police. That group includes teachers and school employees, law enforcement officials, social workers, physicians and clergy.
"I don't go to my supervisor and say, 'Johnny came to school today and I suspect that something might be happening at home and I'm suspecting that he might not be safe and I'm going to report it,'" Carrillo said. "That principal cannot say, 'don't worry about it, I'll take care of it.' "
Pennsylvania, however, allows those who work with children who suspect abuse to report it to their supervisor, upon whom the obligation to contact authorities then falls. That's what former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno did in 2002 when he was told former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky had molested a boy on campus. Paterno has not been charged with a crime, but two administrators have been charged with lying to a grand jury.
Sandusky has been charged with molesting eight boys over several years but maintains his innocence. Penn State officials have drawn fire for not doing more to stop the alleged abuse.
"It was, 'We'll deal with it within our own community,' " Carrillo said. "They were protecting the adults in that situation and not the children, and they were protecting the reputation of the college."
A pair of California state lawmakers introduced legislation last week aimed at preventing another Penn State-like situation. One bill would hold public and private university coaches responsible for reporting sexual abuse; the other would strip nonprofit organizations -- Sandusky founded a nonprofit, Second Mile Foundation, for at-risk youths -- of their tax-exempt status if they are caught hiding, fostering or failing to report child sexual abuse.
Carrillo favors broadening California laws to require more people to report suspected abuse.
"Why not? Why can't we all protect children?" she said. "Why can't we all be required to protect children and to be involved in children's' lives."
"It's important that we raise healthy, emotionally, physically healthy children, because they are our future. I know I want healthy children growing up to be healthy, productive adults in our society."
Online
To learn more about the Child Abuse Prevention Council of Contra Costa County, visit www.capc-coco.org.
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Child Death Review Team Year End Report
Political Blotter: Boxer bills would require everyone to report child abuse
By Josh Richman
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 11/21/2011 12:00:00 AM PST
Updated: 11/21/2011 06:29:31 AM PST
This is a sampling from Bay Area News Group's Political Blotter blog. Read more and post comments at www.ibabuzz.com/politics.
Nov. 16
This means you, Mike McQueary.
U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., says she'll introduce a pair of bills tomorrow that will protect children from abuse by strengthening federal and state reporting requirements so abuse is reported to local law enforcement or a child protective agency.
"To protect our children from violence and abuse, anyone who sees or knows about a crime against a child must report it to local authorities. Right now, the federal government and 32 states have no such requirement in law," Boxer said in her news release.
Boxer's bills -- the State Child Protection Act and the Federal Child Protection Act -- require that anyone who witnesses or has reasonable suspicion of a crime against a child must report it to local law enforcement or a child protective agency. Under the State Child Protection Act, states that fail to comply would lose some of their federal justice assistance grants. The Federal Child Protection Act would require all persons on federal property to report child abuse.
California does not have comprehensive reporting requirements for child abuse, Boxer noted.
McQueary, a Penn State assistant football coach, apparently did not contact police after witnessing
the alleged rape of a 10-year-old boy by assistant coach Jerry Sandusky in an athletic facility shower in 2002.
UPDATE
: U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., today introduced a similar bill requiring all states to pass and enforce a law requiring all adults to report instances of known or suspected child abuse; Boxer is the bill's co-sponsor. The main difference between Boxer's bill and Casey's bill is the specific funding the federal government would withhold from states that don't comply: Boxer's threatens to revoke part of a state's Byrne Justice Assistance Grant funding from the Justice Department, while Casey's would hold back funding through the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act administered by the Health and Human Services Department.
-- Josh Richman
Suspect In Vallejo Infant Beating Arrested In Minn.
Posted: 9:31 pm PDT May 25, 2011
VALLEJO, Calif. -- A Vallejo man suspected of physically abusing a 1-month-old boy has been arrested in Minnesota, Vallejo police Detective Cpl. John Garcia said. The baby suffered brain trauma and bleeding and broken ribs and, as of Wednesday, was in critical condition at Children's Hospital and Research Center in Oakland, Garcia said. The unresponsive infant was brought to Kaiser Permanente Vallejo Medical Center on May 20, Garcia said. Police determined the baby's mother's boyfriend, 21-year-old Joseph Allen Wilson, caused trauma to the baby, Garcia said. Police obtained a $1.5 million warrant for felony child abuse causing great bodily injury and tracked Wilson to Shakopee, Minn., Garcia said. Shakopee police arrested Wilson on May 25, and he was expected to be extradited to Solano County a few days later, Garcia said. Vallejo and Shakopee police, Children's Hospital and Research Center, the Solano County District Attorney's Office, and Solano County Children Protective Services investigated the incident, Garcia said. Anyone with information about the case was asked to call the Vallejo Police Department tip line at (800) 488-9383.Copyright 2011 by KTVU.com and Bay City News. All rights reserved
Post-Traumatic Childhood
By BESSEL A. van der KOLK
Published: May 10, 2011
Brookline, Mass.
AS a young psychiatrist, I worked with Vietnam War combat veterans and confronted the astonishing lack of resources to help these men and women who had sacrificed so much for their country. Three decades later, that situation has greatly improved. First, we named the problem — post-traumatic stress disorder — and then in 1989 Congress created the National Center for PTSD to help suffering veterans.
Their plight has also led to a greater recognition of the impact of violence on children. For every soldier returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with symptoms of depression or PTSD, there are around 10 children in the United States who are traumatized by exposure to family violence, sexual abuse, neglect and assault, with consequences comparable to those of adult exposure to war-zone violence. We have made progress in treating these children, but that progress is threatened by a drastic budget cut proposed by the White House.
Rather than being subjected to bullets and bombs, children are victimized by those who are meant to care for them. These are children like a 3-year-old girl in Anchorage who was found by a police officer in her crib, hungry, underweight and covered in her own feces; an 11-year-old boy in New York City who has had violent outbursts since he was sexually molested, and whose terror of being alone makes him a subject of ridicule by his classmates; or a 14-year-old girl in Boston who set fire to a church and repeatedly attempted suicide after being beaten at home. The Pew Charitable Trusts estimates that the annual cost of childhood maltreatment like this is $103.8 billion.
Inspired by the work of the National Center for PTSD, Congress authorized the establishment of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network in 2001 to evaluate and develop treatments for traumatized children nationwide, with a budget that is now $40 million — about the cost of keeping 40 soldiers fighting in Afghanistan for one year.
President Obama’s 2012 budget has proposed a 70 percent reduction in financing for the network. That would be devastating for these children. The network has knitted together 130 clinics and universities in 38 states that specialize in helping traumatized children and adolescents. It has allowed the members to develop treatment programs and to hire and educate the staff to run them, enabling 322,000 children nationwide to get treatment from July 2002 to September 2009.
According to the latest figures available, 2.9 million children were mistreated in 2006, many of whom manifested serious behavioral and psychological problems. The network has started to document how trauma affects developing brains differently from those of adults exposed to wartime violence.
It has also been evaluating what interventions are most effective for different groups of children. Two have been most thoroughly studied and found to be effective: cognitive behavioral therapy and treatments to help children regulate their emotions. Children who receive these treatments were shown to function substantially better afterward.
Most traumatized children now do not even receive a proper mental health assessment. Moreover, hundreds of thousands of them are numbed by powerful drugs that help control their “bad behavior,” but that don’t deal with the imprint of terror and helplessness on their minds and brains. Drugs can sedate, but they do not help children deal with trauma — in fact, they may prevent recovery by interfering with learning and the formation of relationships, essential preconditions for becoming functioning adults.
The proposed budget cut for the network would mean that it no longer can develop and test effective treatments for these children. This is unfortunate since we are just beginning to look at what treatments can produce the best outcomes, and to learn from the cases in which these treatments do not work.
Untreated, traumatized children become failing adults who populate our jails and overwhelm our human services agencies. Cutting the development of effective treatments will produce many years of increasing costs and unquantifiable human misery.
Bessel A. van der Kolk, a professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine, is the founder and medical director of the Trauma Center at the Justice Resource Institute.
A version of this op-ed appeared in print on May 11, 2011, on page A25 of the New York edition with the headline: Post-Traumatic Childhood.
January 2008 Contra Costa Times article: County programs assist parents
The Orinda News Nov-2010 Conor News2
February 8, 2011
Assembly Member Susan Bonilla
State Capitol, Room 2188
Sacramento, Ca 94249-0011
Re: Opposition to Governor’s Use of First 5 State and Local Reserves
Dear Assembly Member Bonilla:
As a board member of the Child Abuse Prevention Council of Contra Costa County I am writing to ask to reconsider the Governor’s proposal to using one billion in First 5 state and local reserves to fill gaps in the MediCal budget and 50% of future Proposition 10 tobacco tax revenues to fund state health programs. These reserves are monies saved by local First 5 commissions in anticipation of revenue declines. Most of these funds are encumbered for multi-year funding commitments while the remainder is committed to sustaining programs. By sweeping these reserves you are punishing the First 5 commissions for their strategic budgetary planning. You will also annihilate the ability of local First 5 commissions to support community-based organizations.
In Contra Costa County alone this would equate to a loss in its budget of over $12 million dollars with no reserves. Currently 80 percent of First 5 Contra Costa program contracts go to community-based organizations. Our First 5 families would see reductions or eliminations of programs including: preschool and early education, home visiting, literacy support, parent education, support of children with special needs, prenatal care, homeless services, substance recovery, early mental health, teen parent support and vital information on child abuse prevention and more. These are families that are already suffering as the result of continued cuts in social services over the last few years. With these proposed loss of services many families will no longer be able to sustain themselves.
This will be the fourth time Proposition 10 has faced the voters. Proposition 1D, in 2009, called for the diversion of 50% of the Proposition 10 funds into the state general fund for 5 years. It was defeated by an overwhelming 60% of voters. A special election to again divert these funds will again be a cost burden to the voters, one that is unlikely to be successful given the Governor’s proposal to seek 50% of the First 5 funds indefinitely. A one-year fix for MediCal will take funds that have been pegged for sustaining local programs for several years. This is not the answer.
Sincerely,
A Concerned Community member
For information about current and upcoming news, please contact:
Carol Carrillo, MSW
Executive Director
Child Abuse Prevention Council of Contra Costa
2120 Diamond Blvd., Suite 120
Concord, CA 94520
(925) 798-0546
Fax (925) 798-0756