A Crisis Response Team, available around the clock, provides an immediate comprehensive assessment of children exposed to violence, and then helps coordinate appropriate trauma and support services. The public debate now occurring in this country regarding guns and violence in our culture ignores the effects on children who witness such violence. We must do everything in our power to help children recover from the adverse effects of witnessing violence so the negative results will not scar our children and their futures. It is a trauma that is never forgotten. The best we can do after the fact is to build up that side of the child's experience which is positive, which is based on caring for the child.
Unresolved violence leads to the acting out of future agony.
We choose instead to confront it. The statewide training to be held in April and May will lay the foundation to expand the successful Cuyahoga County program to six additional sites around Ohio. Attorney General Montgomery will be committing future funding to support the statewide expansion of the program. Efforts and resources spent to help children who witness violence are a wise investment in our future. Estimates show that children are present in at least 80 percent of domestic violence incidents.