hi i'm burke hazzard and welcome to another episode of the ads sometimes the youngest people need the biggest defense especially in the us here in pennsylvania according to the state wide child protective services in twenty seventeen forty eight percent of all substantiated reports of sexual abuse or sexual abuse according and according to darkness to light a way we can prevent sexual abuse or any other kind for that matter is by looking for emotional signs these signs may vary from too perfect all the way to extreme anger it's hard to know whether a child is facing abuse but it's always good to be looking for a change in behavior or an extreme one now you may be thinking that kids affected by child abuse should where you should be removed from their houses but that's not always the solution neuberger reports of the process of determining if a child should be removed from their home is more difficult than suspected by weighing the trauma of family separation against the possibility of further abuse caseworkers have to draw this line every day last year in the western region of pennsylvania the state why child protective services found seven hundred and two reports of child abuse all of us need to be on alert to help prevent pope report and prevent child abuse so we have brought in cancer polly and memories to miss my amos meyer for counseling in trauma services to talk about identifying and preventing tout abuse it's great to have  here thank you for inviting me i'd like to start off by asking what is child abuse child abuse is defined by in certain areas child abuse is physical abuse emotional or mental abuse and that includes verbal or sexual abuse of children now there's also another part that is called tiled neglect and child neglect can be physical neglect where they're not they don't have enough food or clothing or shelter it can be emotional neglect where they don't get the emotion they don't have their emotional needs met no hugs no love just very stoic and nobody to touch it can also be medical neglect where the child needs medical attention and is and it is with not more you might notice a hyper startle if you see a child and then they'll go up and instead of just a just a it's a very very exaggerated startle but if you asked the child what's going on oh nothing i'm fine because if this is their parents as if this is their their caretakers who else do they have to take care of them they have to if they say anything bad about mom or dad what's going to happen to them so their many times will not disclose it which how do daughter friends get children to talk about child abuse well they're not going to talk about child abuse per se for let me give you an example of physical abuse when when a child is physically abused they may have a lot battered i was working in a school one day because i'm a nurse too and this kid came in with a with a red mark on their neck and the teacher brought them to me and what i did was i sketched it out and the red mark was a hand print and you couldn't tell that it was a hand print just from looking at it because it was around but once i sketched it out it was a hand print so sometimes there is visible marks on the children and then you can tell area there could be bruising there could be and these are the physical effects there could be sexually transmitted diseases there could be  i'm trying to think that's what i'm thinking about right now now with the emotional abuse that a lot harder do you know what emotional abuse is not necessarily  i'm going to pretend i'm going to be abusive to you ok do you know you're a lousy person you know i don't even know why you're here right now you are not smart why should you even try to do that does that make you feel pretty bad yeah and it wasn't real by the way but to have somebody just talking to a kid and just downing them all the time like you idiot will what do you think that's going to do to the child they're going to have a really poor self image they're not going to think about themselves if they don't think they can do good why should you even try you know because it's useless if other people don't believe you can do it then you for child abuse yes the nice thing that the state of pennsylvania has done is they'd have said that you don't have to prove that it's child a brute abuse if you even suspect if you have a glimmer that this child is being abused then you call child line or you can go to the pennsylvania website and report it via the internet via the website so you don't have to it doesn't have to be proved it just has to be suspected and then c y s will become involved and they can then do the investigation it's not up to you to do the investigation all you have to do is suspect it is there anything is there a way that we can so if if we felt that the internet  or or hotline wasn't enough yes there is emotional abuse itself is not always reportable because there isn't anything physical but what you can do is be a friend to that child you can if the smaller child you can be a mentor there are cases in cases in cases of people who grew up in bad environments experiencing abuse and they turn out really well and it's because they they have a mentor they have somebody who believes in them who can who they can go to for some guidance who can give them the hugs if they need hugs and who will listen to them and treat them like they're important i think that's a very big job and yes you can do that from god that i can and so for those who don't have a mentor how are they affected later in life there is and a study is called the ace study it's pretty old now and what it does is it looked at child at people's events that happened in people's trial hoods and then compared them  to what happened when they were adults and the a study has proven that there's an increased amount of auto immune diseases when people experience abuse there's an increased amount it really does it's also treatable so it's not like this is a hopeless cause i have you have you heard of cases where those how those who have suffered from child abuse that have gone on to do better things and help other kids absolutely and that's it called making meaning you make something good come out of something bad i don't know how it started but the guardian angel program that was is is one of them i'm not intimately familiar with it but it's when children at wrist have monitors that they can that they can call for help on it at home if they need it that's something good coming out of something that that happened that what that was bad and you can always make meaning you can always make something good come out of it sometimes it takes a while it doesn't happen immediately but there can be growth from it so that the guardian angel boy what is it exactly like everything behind it i believe that when children are identified at as at risk and they're working with i don't know whether they would be working with castle or c y s or the courts but they're given a little thing a little bracelet or a necklace and if they need some help at home if things aren't safe for them at home they can press it and and people will come to check on them it's like what do you know what the necklace looks like no i don't  never seen it i'm sorry that's ok are there other are there other organizations like guardian angel and watch and what organization that i don't know but i do know that c y s does the best job that they can to help children be safe also there is an organization called cas and i'm sorry that acronym and i'm not remembering what it stands for but what they are are there volunteers appointed to by the court to be an advocate for children who are in  in the system and and in possible abuse cases so i think that the c y s and castle and the courts are doing the best job that they can but it's slim you know it's limited and i think that by the normal everyday person being aware of what child abuse is and not being afraid to speak up is the most important thing because you are the ones who have the power and the ability to  so what do you how do the cost of volunteers hope the children i am not not intimately involved with them but i do know that they visit them and they try to be a who or nader between all those services and they're going to they're going to be an advocate any way that that child needs an advocate to be  i think that's all the time we have left for this section only back shortly after this break hi i'm more your murty in the co hosts of the show that along broke hazard welcome back from the commercial break but with paul with pauline so what would you say puts children at a higher risk for child abuse happens well if their parents or guardians are in a domestic violence relationship and domestic violence people always think well it's the guy who's always acting out but it's not women are there's an increasing amount of women who are either verbal e or physically abusive and and the children can either watch that i mean be exposed to that how would you feel if you saw one of your parents getting slapped and hit would really hurt her or they can be part of that they can be they can be physically or emotionally injured by by that exposure the second thing is if their parents or guardians have problems with addictions especially drug and alcohol another one is if parents or guardians have an ongoing mental illness a lot of  times adults with mental illness are having a lot of trouble just taking care of themselves rather than also taking care of the children in their care if the parents don't really have their act together with being a parent  and this is especially true with single young caregivers who just don't have the knowledge they've never been around a child before and they especially when you talk about young caregivers they're trying to get their own act together and then they're still supposed to care for a child and there isn't there's a lack of community support of social support of family support for the caregivers and they just get burnt out and so all of these factors can increase the risk of child abuse so if a child is experiencing child abuse because of this what should their next step in doing if they want to report it so let me see if i get this right so you're saying if you suspect child abuse if the child is experiencing it sorry and they want to like say something to somebody but they're scared or like how should they go about doing that i doubt if they will if depending on how old they are i mean legally your children because you're not eighteen yet so i think that you are have to divide up between little kids are not going to tell you a teenager's that's a different story so what they can say you know they may be able to say i don't like what my mom is doing i don't like what my dad is doing and they may not own you don't know you really don't know and that's where listening with to what they say and what they don't say and being aware of for any kind of signs of physical abuse to kids rarely unless they're there they're really good at being a teenager i mean really assertive they're not going to say that's not they think that this is normal they even have not been around other families where it doesn't happen because this is their family and that's what they live this is their norm so how would you say that children cope one of us happening well they can withdraw they can look sad they can be sad they can have crying spells sometimes they get angry a lot of times especially young children they'll act out they'll be bad and this because there's a sense that they their grades can go down in school they can be really worried some especially the older siblings will try to protect the younger siblings and get very very overprotective many times to the child start parenting the parent instead of the parent instead of being having the child role in the family they'll have a parent role in the family there can be avoidance issues they might not want to go home i've had adults tell me that i've seen who grew up in abusive situations i didn't want to leave school because goal was a lot nicer than it was at home so that happens these children don't have very good self image is they really struggle with that they really anybody who will give them an out a boy or you did a good job boy they just want to hang around them because they don't get it other places so how can we prevent child abuse i love that question thank you for asking that education the more you can identify it the the more you can takes to take a stand also by reporting it as i said to brooke earlier you don't have to absolutely no one hundred percent that this child is in an abusive situation now in pennsylvania you can report child abuse for physical abuse or for sexual abuse emotional abuse doesn't count unfortunately even though it's very very damaging and let me tell you this is do you like harry potter i love harry potter and in the fist book of harry potter potter the order of the phoenix after that  big battle at the met at the ministry of magic and ron's in the in the hogwarts hospital wing and harry goes to see him he had he'd gotten ron had but been attacked by a brain and he got all sorts of injuries and the nurse is putting medicine on it and she says thoughts leave the deep scars it's true thoughts leave the deepest scars but anyway we're talking about reporting sexual abuse sexual and physical abuse and that's the abuse that you would call child line that now when you call child line they're going to ask for your name and your address and what's going on but when they go to  investigate it they never tell who called so there's some safety in there one of the things that i recommend is if you as adolescents as very informed  that some child abuse don't you're not you're not all by yourself you are around people who have had training your you're around teachers you've got your parents you've got people around you who may be a little more knowledgeable maybe a little more aware so don't keep it to yourself bounce it off somebody and see what they think and when in doubt like should i or should i should i not you should if the question is should i or should i not then you should because if it doesn't come out it doesn't come out and there and that's ok but you're erring on the can on the side of caution ok how consumers like us get more educated on child abuse but i was so pleased when brooke sent me that email and called my office so learn more about it also there's i put some web sites up for par which is pittsburgh action against rape and rain which is rape abuse incest  national network and there there have they have a lot of that those are mainly sexual child sexual abuse child sexual abuse is horrible just horrible and especially with been in the news and the thing is you don't know who's doing it you know so i encourage you to do some investigating explore those websites find out more things read more talk about it people usually are very comfortable talking about acim don't be afraid to speak up and learn everything that you can because the more you learn that that will just empower you to make healthier choices and going back to the guardian angels program to the parents are the parents involved i think they have to know about it but i i just know and i'm just on the ancillary part of that so i'm not that familiar with it but i think it's a wonderful program and somebody was telling me that the person who started that isn't peter's i think a really i think not positive but yeah when you think that it would make the parents more mad like knowing that they have and that class that's because they're at risk from the parents they probably won't like it but if they have to have it they have to have it have you ever had a case where  child or an a child hasn't wanted to leave the household even though it was harmful always because you know yet only have one mom and you only have one dad and mom and dad are really important no matter how rotten they are and you have to remember people are rotten twenty four seventh's and these parents are not many times this is how they were raised and so you have dysfunctional parenting techniques going from generation to generation another thing is that you're we're not saying that the parents don't love the children they're just not making it they might be under the influence they might be having anger issues they're having to deal with their own problems but that's not saying that they don't love their children and so the children are in a no win situation because sometimes mom and dad are really nice and wonderful and then at other times they hurt them so if you had your choice you don't want to lose that love and wonderful part you know and we're all hard wired to love our parents and their parents are hard wired to love us it's just we have to do it in a safe way in a healthy way how can adults much older know that it's ok to talk about abuse if they are being abused or know if they would i don't know that's a good question i doubt very much if if a if especially in domestic abuse situations have you ever heard the term what happens in vegas stays in vegas in the mystic abuse situations especially don't you tell you tell in sexual abuse situations the perpetrator is going to say tell if you especially in sexual abuse if you tell i'm going to hurt you i'm going to hurt your mommy or your daddy or your brother or sister listen to this if i if you tell the police are going to come and the rest me and since i'm the one that's working and providing for money for the rent you know they're going to take me to jail and you're not going to have food or a place to live in it'll all be your fault the whenever there sexual abuse there's always a threat against telling and i had what i have one lady that i'm working with right now and she and her perpetrator said if you tell anybody nobody's going to love you anymore so that's carrie and needs are just little kids so they're not going to tell  well thank you so much for coming in today child abuse has put a major death toll on the united states around five children die a day because of child abuse and neglect those who endured child abuse are more likely to become involved in criminal activity eighty percent of those in prison met the criteria of a psychological disorder those that met the criteria reported childhood abuse a report of child abuse is made every ten minutes the united states has one of the worst child abuse records among all of the industrialized nations losing on average between four and seven children every day children are not the only ones affected by abuse abuse of facts everyone from infants to elder people learn and understand the signs of child abuse we can save lives