National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse

child abuse trauma prevention, intervention & recovery

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NAASCA Weekly News

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To get yogurt, kids at daycare had to play 'smack for a snack'

by Karla Ward

A Lexington, Kentucky, daycare center is being monitored by the state after a complaint investigation found that two male employees made children line up and get hit on the legs or hand with a ruler in order to get some yogurt.

One of the two male employees involved in the incident at New Creation Child Care was cited by police for second-degree assault for the “game,” which he reportedly called “smack for a snack,” according to a state inspection report.

The employees who were involved in the Aug. 4 incident were not named in the report.

The children who were involved were school-age.

A 10-year-old girl told investigators: “The teacher said if you want a yogurt, you have to stand up to get hit on the hand or the leg. Everyone lined up to get a hit. Some kids were crying about it.”

Investigators who visited the home of the girl and a 7-year-old boy five days after the incident said that the two children “still had discoloration and bruising on their legs as a result of being struck by an object,” according to the inspection report.

While being questioned by a police detective, one of the men “confirmed he hit the children with a ruler and implied that it was just a game. The Detective asked him how many kids were hit and he replied, ‘Definitely twenty plus kids. But, not everybody got hit,'” according to the report.

One of the male staff members was said to have hit the children only on their hands, the other only on the legs.

The Office of Inspector General in the Kentucky Cabinet for Health And Family Services conducted the investigation of New Creation along with a detective from the police department's Crimes Against Children unit and a representative of the state Department for Community Based Services. They inspected the facility Aug. 9.

During the investigation, New Creation was placed under intermediate sanctions that called for increased monitoring, said Beth Fisher, spokeswoman for the cabinet.

“The Division of Regulated Child Care in OIG is currently monitoring the facility to assure compliance with the intermediate sanctions agreement,” she said in an email.

A message left with employees of the Industry Road daycare center Thursday night was not immediately returned.

The state inspector wrote that the daycare director was informed of the “smack for a snack” incident on Aug. 4, but the man who had hit the children on their legs was still working with the school-age children during the inspection.

“I didn't even want a snack, but he hit me anyway,” a 9-year-old told the investigators.

A 7-year-old boy said, “One day we got smacked with a hard stick for a snack. Sometimes it was on the leg and sometimes it was on the hand. Everyone that wanted a snack got hit; it hurt.”

Also during the Aug. 9 visit, during which the facility was caring for 83 children, the state inspector reported finding one woman looking after 27 school-age children, 12 more than permitted under state staff-to-child ratios.

In addition, the inspector found a shattered storefront glass window. Staff members said that one child knocked another child into the window, breaking it, on the same day as the “smack for a snack” incident.

A state inspection in May found the facility to be in compliance with state requirements, but there were problems in some previous visits, according to online documents.

In January, an inspector found several problems, including children between ages 1 and 2 watching “SpongeBob SquarePants” and 3-year-olds watching “Shrek.”

“The staff person kept telling the children numerous times to ‘sit down, get back in you chair, stop that.' The surveyor noted that most of the children were not watching the movie,” the inspector wrote of the 3-year-olds.

In April 2014, an inspector reported seeing children riding in the daycare's van standing up without seat belts on after being picked up from Mary Todd Elementary.

Members of the public can search for child care centers and check inspection reports through the Kentucky Integrated Child Care System.

http://www.kansascity.com/latest-news/article105405611.html

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Pennsylvania

Documentary Sheds Light on Child Abuse

by Marissa Stern

Sifting through 700 hours of film footage, including 200 hours of home video, Sasha Neulinger has been rewatching his childhood for the last four years to create a documentary, Rewind to Fast-Forward .

At a fundraiser called Montana Meets Pennsylvania at International House Philadelphia on Sept. 24, Neulinger — who grew up in Lower Merion and now lives in Bozeman, Montana — showed a gathering of people who were participating in a silent auction as well as munching on hors d'oeuvres clips from the assembly edits of the film.

While some of the clips were joyful, like Sasha as a little boy laughingly taking his baby sister's pacifier from her mouth, others hit you in the gut, like his father walking around his childhood home and coming to terms with the fact that his brothers and abusers also sexually abused his son.

Neulinger, now 27, was abused for years as a young boy by three members of his family. The case made headlines as it was found that his uncle, Howard Nevison, one of his abusers (Neulinger and family have changed their names), was a well-known cantor at a synagogue in New York's Upper East Side.

It's a part of his past from which Neulinger has spent years healing, and now he wants to share it with the world with the hopes that it will help others heal as well.

Watching the home videos incorporated with the film — which also features interviews with his psychiatrist, the prosecutor and detective on his case, his parents as well as others — gave him an opportunity to revisit his childhood and a chance to look at how his past affected him and how it has shaped him as an adult, he said.

“In rewatching my childhood,” he said, “I got to see the kid that I was before abuse. I got to see how much beauty and joy that I started with in life. I got to watch the four years of my life from 4 to 8 where I was holding this painful secret and I got to watch myself grow up. And in rewatching my childhood memories and moments, I got to realize something I couldn't possibly understand as a child who felt dirty, disgusting, unlovable, and that is that I never lost what made me beautiful. I only lost the ability to accept that I was beautiful, to see that I was worth something.

“But when I watch myself as a kid objectively as an adult,” he continued, “I see that my abusers didn't take that beauty away from me, even though I was experiencing pain, even though I was limited by self-doubt and self-deprecating thoughts. And in seeing that, it's been beautiful to reconnect with the part of myself that for so long I thought made me less than the quote-unquote victim.”

Interviews with his mother, as the audience saw, included recalling a time where Neulinger tried to jump out of a moving car and dark drawings he had made.

His story involves looking at multigenerational abuse and the emotional, clinical and legal facets that go with it.

“In juxtaposing my childhood to the childhood of my abusers, who were also abused,” he said, “we can see what help for a child actually means in terms of their overall health, but we can still look at my case and say that's not good enough — we need child advocacy centers, we need to erase the stigma and the shame, there needs to be more support for adult survivors.”

But ultimately, the message is one of hope.

“There is inspiration, there is hope and the message is that if we are able to look at our wounds and embrace your fears, to accept and examine our traumatic experiences, then we can truly heal them and move forward in life,” he said, “and this idea that it's never too late to start the journey of healing.

“And ultimately I believe that healing isn't a destination. It's a journey.”

Through Kickstarter, Neulinger started raising funds to create the project that became the sixth most-backed documentary in Kickstarter history, he added, and began working with Skywalker Sound and editor Ken Schretzmann from Pixar. The goal for the Sept. 24 event was to raise the additional funds needed for sound editing and to create an original score for the film, which he hopes will be done by August 2017.

His case spurred a larger movement in child advocacy, including the creation of Mission Kids Child Advocacy Center in East Norriton with the help of then-district attorney Risa Ferman and Abbie Newman.

A Philadelphia-area transplant from New York, Newman began her career as a pediatric registered nurse before becoming an attorney for 20 years and then moving into nonprofit work.

She recalled watching Neulinger's case unfold on the news, not being able to believe it. Now, as executive director of Mission Kids, she works to make sure that isn't people's first reactions.

“A natural reaction is that you want to think you're not seeing what you're actually seeing, you're not really seeing the signs,” she explained. “People will make up excuses in their own minds because it's easier to say, ‘Oh he's just eccentric, he's quirky, he's not really touching inappropriately.' The clip in the film where Howard is using the word pervert in a joking way, that's not a very — that makes people uncomfortable but people are willing to overlook it and I think that happens all the time.”

For her, the mission is for people to recognize abuse and talk about it to erase the stigma, and films like Neulinger's will help, she said.

“I want people to recognize that child abuse does exist,” she said, “that they should never question reporting what might be child abuse because they're concerned about the adult and what could happen to that adult if a report is false. I want them to think, instead, what happens to that child if he or she is being abused and you don't report it.

“The final message is that children can heal from abuse, but only if it's recognized and they can talk about it, and as adults, we need to help them let go of this secret and give them the support they need so they can heal.”

Donations for the film's development and production can still be made at rewindtofastforward.com.

http://www.jewishexponent.com/culture/2016/09/documentary-sheds-light-on-child-abuse

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Tennessee

Chattanooga & Tennessee lead the war against child sex trafficking

by Millicent Smith

A white picket fence.

That's what she saw during the entire time — her first time — she was sold for sex.

Looking through a car window, the girl fixed her eyes on the fence, trying to escape her assaulted body still trapped in the car — a body that had just been sold for $250.

That was a good rate since she was only 12 years old.

Escaping a violent home, the girl was at a bus stop when she was found by the man who would become her pimp. The girl was looking for love, and that's what the man was peddling — or that's what he said.

But all thoughts of love vanished the day he left her in the car with the customer, the day she stared at that white picket fence.

In her Nashville office decorated with crayoned colorings and a collage of posed selfies from her young daughter, Margie Quin, assistant special agent in charge of the Human Trafficking Unit at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, tells this story. Though she knows many other stories like this one, something about the girl's moment with the fence haunts Quin.

She has led the bureau's Operation Someone Like Me since May 2015 when Gov. Bill Haslam signed legislation giving jurisdiction over trafficking to the TBI. The operation's stings get their name from a survivor's story, a girl who helped Quin decode the jargon that pimps use to lure predators at online sites like Backpage.com.

"Our agents were talking with a survivor in an effort to understand in detail how this crime unfolds," Quin recalls, "After more than an hour of conversation we thanked her for her time."

The team of agents was humbled by the young woman's response.

"No. Thank you," the survivor said. "You don't know what it means to someone like me that the TBI is willing to go out and rescue these girls."

"People ask me what I do for self-care," Quin say, then laughs. "I put the bad guys in jail. That's my self-care."

Fighting the war

In many ways, Chattanooga and Tennessee have become a focal point in the war against sex trafficking. The effort has involved not only agencies such as the TBI and local law enforcement, it also has generated support from locally-based groups such as Second Life Chattanooga, the Women's Fund of Chattanooga, Richmont Counseling Center and Mitch Patel, CEO of Vision Hospitality Group, which has a portfolio of Hilton- and Marriott-affiliated properties.

The battle also has made its way to Congress with the End Modern Slavery Initiative from Bob Corker, the Republican U.S. senator from Tennessee and former Chattanooga mayor.

As the geographic intersection of Interstates 75, 24 and 59, Chattanooga provides an easy path for pimps to transport their victims around the Southeast, Quin said during a January presentation in Chattanooga. That's especially true for traffickers from Atlanta which, in 2014, was ranked as the No. 1 city in the country for sex trafficking by Washington D.C.'s Urban Institute, which researches economic and social policy.

Jerry Redman, co-founder of Second Life, which helps victims of sex trafficking, believes the local anti-trafficking partnerships could have impact beyond Tennessee.

"Tennessee is just one of those states where the right people found each other and decided out of the chute, 'What if we work together?'" he says. "Could we create something that leverages resources in a strategic way and see if we could grow it beyond Atlanta and beyond Georgia and beyond Tennessee?"

Over the course of six stings in the state of Tennessee, Quin and her agents have made 131 arrests and rescued 10 trafficked women and girls. In Nashville, her agents posed as underage girls on Backpage.com for a sting in August. Instead of children waiting for them at the hotel, the johns found the TBI.

The agents arrested 41 people, including a high school teacher, an IT specialist and a 20-year-old Vanderbilt University football player who's no longer on the team. Over two days, the undercover TBI agents received 485 responses to their Backpage.com ads selling underage girls.

"You can see it is a demand-driven crime," Quin says.

Just a few months earlier, Quin and her agents executed a similar sting in Knoxville. The operation drew national attention when it was revealed that two church pastors were arrested while trying to purchase underage girls.

Quin and her team have executed two stings in the Hamilton County region since launching Operation Someone Like Me. They received 292 responses to their Backpage.com ads during the local undercover operation. The sting, which took place in September 2015, resulted in the arrest of 20 men, including a painter, an engineer, a truck driver, a landscaper, a student and a construction worker, according to the TBI's Operation Someone Like Me blog.

In February, TBI partnered with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for a sting in which 168 men contacted undercover agents online. Nineteen men were arrested.

Dr. Jill Robinson, a research associate at Vanderbilt University's Peabody Research Institute, led a 2010 study on trafficking in partnership with the TBI, a study considered a linchpin in supporting Tennessee's anti-trafficking movement. She is reluctant, however, to cite exact statistics because trafficking is such an underreported crime.

"At a minimum there are currently hundreds of victims or survivors of sex trafficking in the state," Robinson says. "And I am confident that this is an underestimation."

Pitching in

TBI agents are not the only ones on the scene when the stings go down. In each county, they work with local nonprofit agencies to provide support services to the trafficked girls and women.

Sheila Simpkins, 46, who works as a director of survivor services with End Slavery Tennessee, a Nashville nonprofit, was present at both of the Hamilton County stings.

"The beauty of what TBI is doing," Simpkins says, "is telling these women that they are not alone, that whenever they are ready, there is someone that loves them and will meet them unconditionally and love them where they are at."

Simpkins is uniquely positioned to meet these women where they're at. She is a graduate of the Magdalene Program at Thistle Farms, a Nashville-based rehabilitation program for women leaving the life of trafficking. She was sent there after being arrested for prostitution.

"I was 14 when I was brought into the lifestyle," Simpkins says. "A boyfriend brought me in."

Like many other victims of trafficking, early childhood sexual abuse made her a vulnerable target.

"I was conditioned at a young age to use my body," Simpkins says. "When I was 6 years old, my mom would me bring into her bed to teach me how to perform oral sex on a man."

With a degree in psychology from the University of Phoenix, Simpkins uses those traumatic experiences to fulfill what she now sees as her calling.

"It's my life. It's what I live to do and I'm pretty darn good at it," Simpkins says. "If I did not have the life experience, I would not be able to make the connection I'm able to make with the girls.

"I give them my own experience and talk to them about their boyfriends and tell them what love is and tell them that, if a man loves you, he's not going to allow you to sell your body."

Corker initiative

In the winter of 2013, Corker and his Chief of Staff Todd Womack sat on a restaurant patio in Washington, D.C., for a weekly dinner to catch up and discuss the issues. As dusk fell over the most powerful city in the world, Womack and Corker discussed the plight of some of the most powerless people in the world: the millions of people living in slavery.

Womack had recently learned of the International Justice Mission (IJM), a nonprofit collection of lawyers, criminal investigators and social workers that helps rescue victims of slavery.

"You know, it's shocking to hear that slavery still exists and to hear the numbers," Womack says. "The senator was very receptive to what I had learned. For Sen. Corker, it really became an action issue when he met the survivors."

While on a trip to Asia, Corker met with IJM-rescued survivors of sexual slavery.

"I spent an entire day with about 20 young ladies who had been trafficked inside the Philippines," Corker says. "I heard their stories; how they were trafficked; what they dealt with and how it affected their lives; how they were being restored.

"Every country in the world has outlawed slavery, but it exists in 165 countries, including the U.S.," he continues. "There are 27 million slaves today in the world today; 24 percent are in sexual servitude. The other 76 percent are in forced labor such as fishing in Ghana, the rug manufacturing industry, etc."

To combat the problem, Corker created the End Modern Slavery Initiative. Through Corker, chairman of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee, those oppressed in slavery now have more power on their side. The legislation passed unanimously out of the Foreign Relations Committee; in December, the Senate passed the fiscal year 2016 appropriations bill, which included funding for the initiative.

"Since Sen. Corker learned about the monstrous problem of human trafficking and modern-day slavery, he has been a champion in the fight to see the crime's demise," says Tim Gehring, policy director for IJM.

Although Corker has focused on the international fight to end slavery, he also has provided support to those tackling sex trafficking in Tennessee.

"Sen. Corker has been enormously supportive of this effort [of TBI]," says Josh DeVine, public information officer for the TBI.

He adds that people like Jerry Redman of Second Life have provided individualized response — a necessary part of the effort — to end trafficking in the Chattanooga area.

"Jerry Redman is doing incredible work with Second Life," DeVine says.

Locally speaking

Redman, a former minister, launched Second Life in 2007 after learning about sex trafficking in the local community.

"When we started talking about it, people started looking at us like we were nuts," says Redman. "'We don't have that here' was the prevailing mindset.

"We realized, frankly, that would be the tougher road."

Redman has been on the scene with TBI's Quin and End Slavery Tennessee's Simpkins on three stings, two in Hamilton County and one in Knoxville.

"We're in a separate part of the transaction area [of the sting location]," Redman says. "Upon [the trafficking victim] being taken into custody early in the process, we are made available to them. [We tell them], 'We have services available to you if you would like to hear how to get out of this situation, medical services, addiction counseling.'"

Six women from the Hamilton County stings have taken Redman up on his offer of a second life. As a result, the organization has become the point of contact for TBI's Human Trafficking Unit in 25 Southeast Tennessee counties.

"Within 24 hours of TBI catching a trafficking situation or when something comes across the radar involving a minor, TBI will notify us," Redman says.

Though Second Life supported 50 trafficking survivors in 2015 and 30 women so far in 2016, Redman knows the numbers are a poor indication of the scale of trafficking in Tennessee.

"We're not crying wolf," he says. "It's an age-old issue and the modern movement is just a decade old, so do the math. It doesn't sound sexy and people roll their eyes at measurability, but we have to find the resources to collect the data in an up-to-the-minute way."

The need to know the exact numbers irritates him.

"Well, tell me, what's an acceptable number?" Redman asks. "How many victims do we need to have in Hamilton County in order for the individual citizen to be moved to outrage and action?"

Hidden trafficking

Redman's organizations partner with other community leaders such as Vision Hospitality Group's Mitch Patel. Not only does he offer employment opportunities for trafficking survivors in his hotels, he also provides leadership on the issue to the hotel industry, which can be a hub for slavery.

To find their underage victims, predators no longer need to visit street corners; they can go classified ad websites like Backpage and Erotic Monkey. With such online human commerce, trafficking victims are very rarely in the public eye, and hotels have become places to identify and rescue victims.

"These kinds of sites seem to just pop up," Redman says. "[We] can't seem to keep up with how many. They cloak them [the girls] in a way that they portray all of them of age, but you'll see things like 'fresh' and quite often the buyers know they are talking about someone who is going to be younger than that."

In the 2014 report that ranked Atlanta No. 1 for sex trafficking, the Urban Institute also said online trafficking websites are "thriving."

"Pimps and sex workers advertise on social media and sites like Craigslist.com and Backpage.com to attract customers and new employees and to gauge business opportunities in other cities," the report said. "Online child pornography communities frequently trade content for free and reinforce behavior. Offenders often consider their participation a 'victimless crime.'"

Once he learned of the role his industry plays in trafficking commerce through a presentation from the Women's Fund of Greater Chattanooga, Patel created a training program to educate hotel staff on how to spot trafficking.

"I'm a leader in the [hotel] industry and I did not know that this was taking place," Patel says. "It floored me, and I thought, 'We have this responsibility to educate and to tell as many people that this is happening.'"

The father of two young girls, the issue hits very close to home for Patel.

"You know, they [the trafficked girls in the presentation] were young. They were nine or 10 years old. It really put a knife right here," Patel says, clutching his heart. "The average age was 13. It resonated with me because at the time my daughters were around the same age."

Changing laws

Like Redman of Second Life, Chattanoogan Ann Coulter and the other members of the Women's Fund learned about the trafficking problem in 2007. They quickly developed a strategy to tackle the issue, deciding to attack it by changing the legislation that criminalizes the victims.

"[We were] outraged that girls were being arrested for prostitution while the human slavers that forced them into and kept them ensnared in sex trafficking were getting off with a misdemeanor," says Coulter, co-chairman of the Women's Fund board.

"We focused on advocating in the Tennessee General Assembly for the passage of laws that would attack the crime and provide protections to victims," she says. "Things such as making the sex trafficking of a minor a crime that carries a class A felony conviction."

Class A felonies are punishable by no less than 15 years and no more than 60 years in prison, according to the Felony Guide of Tennessee. There also can be a fine of $50,000.

The Women's Fund also helped lobbied for laws that allow minor victims "to testify in court under closed-circuit television rather than have to face their adult victimizer in court," Courter says, "and things like removing all parental rights for any parent convicted of trafficking their own child.

"Yes, it happens."

With the passage of the laws, Tennessee was ranked the No. 1 state in the nation for laws fighting human trafficking by Polaris, an international trafficking watchdog group.

Dealing with trauma

The local anti-trafficking community also has added trauma experts to its crusade. This year, Richmont Graduate Institute, a Christian-focused school in Chattanooga, opened a counseling center here and another in Atlanta.

Dr. Jeff Eckert, who runs the Chattanooga trauma center, has met with Redman to explore ways to support women who have escaped trafficking. Eckert believes it's more than coincidence that so many agencies are working to end trafficking in the region.

"I was going to use the word 'providential,'" Eckert says. "With Richmont being a faith-based institution, it's laid on our heart that God is directing something bigger than the idea we have had."

Along with female victims of trafficking, the Richmont Counseling Center works with men suffering from sexual addictions.

"I tend to be very direct and challenging once I've been in a relationship with a man that has been involved in trafficking," Eckert says. "I lay it out in black and white. I want them to be aware of the impact that they very well may not have considered.

"On the other hand," Eckert says, "it's about connecting them with resources to get back on their feet, a much more empathetic, compassionate, supportive role."

In some cases, both customers and pimps want out of the lifestyle, he believes.

"There are some people," Eckert says, "their sexuality has become so twisted, they say they don't want to keep living like this."

Despite his firm-hand approach to therapy for men involved in trafficking, Eckert doesn't think increased risk of prosecution is going to affect the behavior of local men involved in the trade.

"I think money would be better allocated for better treatment," Eckert said, "I don't see guys coming out of a punitive jail sentence with a greater sense of remorse or repentance or a desire to change, but I do see more possibility when there is opportunity to get some kind of help."

Despite the collaborative success of the anti-trafficking movement in Chattanooga, Second Life's Redman worries that other causes may soon capture the attention of the community.

"People get excited about something and then move on to the next thing, something else will be a little sexier to people," he says. "Life is scary, bringing up one more scary thing, you get to the point where you know people have reached capacity and can't know more one thing."

"At the same time, there is a 13-year-old girl somewhere," he says. "She reached capacity months ago."

http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/life/entertainment/story/2016/oct/02/demand-driven-depravity-chattanoog-tennessee/389374/

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Oklahoma

Child abuse prevention starts at early age

by Mark Hughes

Shelly Stout has made it a mission to educate children on how to prevent sexual abuse and how to respond should they become a target.

Stout, who is with Kids' Space Child Advocacy Center, instructs pre-kindergarten through eighth grades. In grades pre-kindergarten through second grade, Stout uses two dolls, Joe and Suzie, to show the gender-mixed classroom where others can and can't touch them.

"Anything a two-piece bathing suit covers up we consider a private area," Stout said of Suzie.

The same goes for Joe in his bathing suit.

She teaches the kids a three-step process and uses hand signals to reinforce her message. Step 1 is "say no" as she waggles her index finger back and forth. Step 2 is to "get away," and she curls her last two fingers and thumb underneath and uses a walking motion with the remaining two.

Finally, "tell a trusted adult," which can be a parent, teacher or someone at church. "And if they don't believe you, keep telling someone," Stout said.

Stout has instructed 2,700 school children since the program began in March 2015. She said that HB1684, known as Erin's Law, requires that every child in kindergarten through fifth grade be taught child abuse prevention.

Of the 2,700 children reached, 80 informed a trusted adult about possible sexual abuse and 62 of the children were confirmed child abuse victims, according to data provided by Kids' Space. All 62 children were provided services through the organization.

Stout tells the younger students "it's not just the big, bad stranger" that may want to sexually abuse them.

"About 90 percent of sexual offenders kids know," said Hilary McQueen, executive director of Kids' Space.

Prior to taking on this position, Stout was an elementary school teacher. Since working with this program, she realizes "that some kids slipped through my fingers — I didn't recognize what they were telling me."

McQueen said it's important for sexually abused youth to recognize that they have been abused and then learn healthier coping skills.

"They think they have a target on their back, but what they don't realize is that very likely their peers at school have been through something similar and they're not alone," she said.

The program goes through eighth grade, but McQueen said if high schools need their help, they just have to call.

"We have teen support groups for ages 14 to 17 who are victims of sexual abuse," she said.

http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/news/child-abuse-prevention-starts-at-early-age/article_74cd439c-67c4-5a09-859c-4e113fdf894b.html

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New York

ACS ignored DOI's recommendation to fix 'serious problems' like Zymere Perkins' case from reoccurring at troubled city agency

by Greg B. Smith

ACS should have cleaned up its act months ago — but failed to do so under a mountain of excuses.

Four months before the beating death of 6-year-old Zymere Perkins, the city agency responsible for protecting children was warned that it needed to implement reforms, investigators said.

The city Department of Investigation had found “serious problems” with the way the agency investigated repeat complaints against troubled families. At the time, they made six recommendations.

Four months later, the city Administration for Children's Services — a sprawling agency with an annual budget of $2.9 billion — has yet to implement any of those suggestions, the Daily News has learned.

Following Zymere's death, DOI is seeking documents from ACS about how it handled the case — specifically looking to see what the agency did to reform itself after DOI released its report.

“DOI is monitoring the recommendations issued to ACS in our May report,” DOI spokeswoman Diane Struzzi said Thursday.

She declined further comment.

A key concern DOI highlighted in May was the agency's problem monitoring families where allegations of abuse or neglect repeatedly surface — like in the Harlem case, where Zymere's mom, Geraldine Perkins, 26, had been investigated five times before the boy's death on Monday.

DOI had given ACS 30 days to fix the problem.

In Perkins' case, ACS had sent caseworkers to probe five instances of abuse, including one as recently as this past April. Each time, a caseworker deemed the allegations unsubstantiated and allowed the troubled mother and her live-in boyfriend, Rysheim Smith, 42, to continue caring for Zymere.

Both Perkins and Smith have since been charged with endangering the welfare of a child — charges that could be upgraded after the medical examiner determines an exact cause of death.

The DOI report came on May 3, weeks after the last ACS visit to Zymere's home. To address problems with the way ACS investigates families with repeat allegations, DOI said the agency needed to stop assigning one caseworker to the same family.

DOI uncovered that this approach created a built-in conflict of interest in which caseworkers were essentially vetting their own prior investigations of families with repeat complaints.

On Thursday, ACS spokeswoman Carol Caceres said the agency had “conditionally accepted” this recommendation — but confirmed the change had not yet occurred. She said ACS is now working the city to resolve “certain technological issues” so they can “address these system changes.”

DOI also discovered ACS wasn't able to make sure everyone in its investigations unit had access to all family histories — and gave ACS 30 days to fix this flaw.

As of Thursday, that reform also had yet to be implemented.

Caceres said the agency is “finalizing guidelines to ensure uniformity in documentation of case information.”

DOI also found inconsistencies in the way ACS issues discipline to caseworkers who screw up, specifically recommending the agency suspend workers under review or put them under added supervision.

ACS declined Thursday to say whether it had made any changes to its discipline protocol.

Under Commissioner Gladys Carrión, ACS had been implementing reforms before the DOI report, the agency said.

Caceres said the agency had launched an “initiative” regarding families with repeat complaints, and at some point — she didn't say when — began “elevating” some cases for more detailed review by supervisors.

“Through this work, ACS is aiming to serve families that we frequently encounter more aggressively at the front end by offering targeted intensive interventions earlier in the life of the case,” Caceres said.

She said ACS plans to launch a “new assessment tool” early next year in collaboration with the University of Chicago, New York University and the City University of New York. The tool will help the city “better identify families at highest risk of repeat child welfare involvement so that we can put services in place that can stabilize families.”

DOI also recommended punishing seven ACS workers involved in cases with two child fatalities and one near-fatality. ACS declined to punish six of the seven.

Caceres said “discipline was not warranted,” but all staff were given additional training.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/manhattan/acs-doi-stop-child-abuse-cases-reoccurring-article-1.2812240

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Michigan

Daveeta Walker trial raises questions about reporting child abuse

by Alexandra Jokich

KALAMAZOO, Mich. (NEWSCHANNEL 3) - During the murder trial of Daveeta Walker--who was convicted Thursday of torturing and killing her 4-year-old daughter--we learned multiple people may have known about the ongoing abuse and never said anything.

Newschannel 3 asked Kalamazoo County Prosecutor Jeff Getting if any of those people may also face charges.

We know police were looking into charges for the people on the periphery of this case--Kharisma Richardson's family and friends who knew something was wrong and failed to report it.

The bright-eyed girl died the morning of her fourth birthday, at the hands of her mother. Over the course of Daveeta Walker's trial, we now know a number of family members and friends knew Kharisma was being abused and didn't pick up the phone to report it.

"The community, we all as a society, those people that knew Kharisma, they failed her," Getting said.

We asked Getting if those who stayed quiet can be held accountable too. He says, in Michigan, certain people are required to report suspected child abuse. But that's largely limited to the professionals who come into contact with the child--like teachers, doctors and counselors. Other people, like family members, can also report, but aren't legally mandated to do so.

"The people that I think were most knowledgeable about this weren't people that had a legal obligation to report, and without that legal obligation, I don't know how the system, the criminal justice system, can hold them accountable," Getting said.

But he says, legally obligated or not, you should say something. For Kharisma, it could have changed everything.

"It's absolutely devastating for us as a community to lose one of members, especially if they're little tiny innocent ones, and so when we hear about those kinds of situations the best we can do to pick up and move on from our grief is to determine how can we prevent this from happening in the future," said Karen Hayter, a program coordinator with the Children's Advocacy Center, in Kalamazoo.

So what is the best way to report suspected child abuse? And at what point should you as the third party intervene?

We took these questions to the Hayter and the Children's Advocacy Center.

"Some people are concerned--oh it's not my business. It's everyone's business if you feel a child is at risk," Hayter said.

Hayter tells us certain people are mandated by michigan law to report suspected child abuse, like the child's teacher or doctor. And even though family or friends are not legally obligated to report, they are encouraged to pick up the phone, just in case.

"We encourage people who have a gut reaction this child is in danger to help the system out, help the child out! One phone call can save a life," she said.

Hayter recommends calling CPS or the police and providing basic details--like the child's name and the reason for concern.

But what if you don't actually know the child?

"If someone observes a child being abused in a public location, the best phone call at that time for that crime is a 9-1-1 phone call," Hayter said.

Getting says if people stepped in sooner, the outcome for Kharisma and other kids like her, could be different.

http://wwmt.com/news/local/daveeta-walker-trial-raises-questions-about-reporting-child-abuse

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Vermont

Gathering explores keys to child abuse prevention

by Elizabeth Hewitt

Gov. Peter Shumlin identified opiate addiction as the greatest challenge to the prevention of child abuse and maltreatment in Vermont during a conference in Montpelier on Thursday.

The daylong event, hosted by Prevent Child Abuse Vermont in recognition of the organization's 40th anniversary, attracted more than 100 people, including several top state officials.

Shumlin spoke at the start of the day, lauding expansions of health care, early education and other systems that have occurred under his tenure — factors that he says improve the safety of children in the state.

However, Shumlin said substance abuse presents a persistent challenge to the state's child protection efforts.

“There is no greater victim of opiate addiction than kids,” Shumlin said.

“We live in a country now where big pharma has so much power and influence over politicians in Washington that we sit here looking at the victims, the kids, and trying to find the resources to pick up the pieces,” Shumlin said.

As Shumlin approaches the end of his administration, he called on the next governor to continue to push for reform on opiate prescription painkillers at a national level.

“My advice, my hope, my prayer would be this: that whoever we choose continues the vigorous outspoken fight against painkillers in this country,” Shumlin said.

The two leading gubernatorial candidates, Democrat Sue Minter and Republican Phil Scott, spoke at the event later in the day.

Both candidates discussed economic development as a way to curb rates of child poverty in Vermont, and touched on education and housing issues.

Asked about budgeting, both candidates said prevention of child abuse is a priority, but they took different approaches.

Scott said public safety is a key function of government. He plans to audit every state agency, including the Department for Children and Families, to see how effectively government tasks are being fulfilled.

“Prevention of child abuse is crucial, and finding ways to redirect dollars away from the process and to the people who are really actually in need requires constant, constant focus on improving the operation performance of every single agency,” Scott said.

Minter said assembling a balanced budget requires a balance of meeting immediate needs and investing in long-term programs, “because we all know that prevention actually helps reduce costs in the future.”

“We must be thinking about prevention and we must be meeting our needs,” Minter said.

https://vtdigger.org/2016/09/29/gathering-explores-keys-child-abuse-prevention/

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Kentucky

NKY mother says her plan for child abuse registry moving forward

Diaz hopes this bill can prevent other families from going through similar traumatic experiences

by Dan Griffin

CAMPBELL COUNTY, Ky. — A Northern Kentucky mother pushing for an online child abuser registry is seeing her plan move forward.

Jennifer Diaz said her daughter, Sophie Diaz, was 4 months old when she was abused by her babysitter, Desiree Rankin, and hospitalized because of her injuries.

Diaz said life has been a roller coaster as she's worked with lawmakers to fight for a change to save young lives.

"With this bill, I think it's helping me in the healing process," Diaz said.

Sophie is now 2 years old and described as a "typical toddler."

Rankin has been sentenced and convicted in the case. She was convicted of first-degree criminal abuse and served three months in jail. She's currently on probation.

Rankin took an Alford plea, meaning she admitted no guilt but acknowledged there may be damaging evidence in the case.

If she violates probation, she'll face significantly more time behind bars, the commonwealth attorney's office said.

Diaz contacted state Rep. Dennis Keene for help in making the child abuse registry a reality.

"I can't take away what that woman did to my child, and it hurts. I can't do anything about that, but I can try to fight to change this law so that she will never be able to do that again," Diaz said.

Keene has now pre-filed legislation in Frankfort to increase transparency when it comes to finding out if people serving as babysitters or child caregivers are convicted child abusers.

"This is something that I see, that it needs to be done. We're going to put every bit of effort into it, you know, 110 percent is not enough sometimes," Keene said.

The bill, called "Sophie's Law," would mean the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services would need to create and maintain a central electronic registry available to the public online.

Keene's office said if it's passed, Kentucky would be the second state in the country to enact this type of legislation.

Indiana paved the way for a child abuse registry earlier this year.

The bill, signed into law in March, requires that a registry be set up and maintained no later than July 1, 2017.

"You can't be sitting around waiting seven or eight days to find out answers. You need to know right away, especially when you need child care," Keene told WLWT News 5's Dan Griffin.

The Kentucky bill drawn up by Keene sets a similar deadline for a registry in the commonwealth.

Diaz hopes this bill can prevent other families from going through similar traumatic experiences.

"If there is a way to prevent another child from going through the trauma of abuse, we must do everything we can to prevent that from happening," Diaz said in a press release from Keene's office. "My baby was so tiny and helpless when we put her babysitting care in the hands of someone we trusted; never knowing she would be abused. Luckily my child recovered; some other children have not. Thank you to Representative Keene for making this child abuse registry available to parents and the public."

According to Keene's office, the Cabinet for Health and Family Services already voluntarily operates a "current central registry of individuals found to have a substantiated case of child abuse and neglect."

It said the registry is searchable by submitting an open-records request to the cabinet.

But "Sophie's Law" would put a central child abuse and neglect registry into a statute, requiring the Cabinet to make a registry on its website that would be searchable and available to parents and the public anytime.

Diaz hopes the bill will soon be law and give parents information they need before they hire someone to babysit.

"I want the world to know so that we can make a change," she said.

Keene said he wants to make this bill a top priority in the upcoming session of the General Assembly and he anticipates the bill will have widespread, bipartisan support.

He said the bill could face some hurdles depending on what committee it goes before, but he believes it will be a fairly cheap option and easily done because Kentucky already has a database for the registry.

Diaz said she is ready to share her story with lawmakers in Frankfort and plans to during the session.

http://www.wlwt.com/article/ryder-cup-heckler-makes-incredible-putt/4367518

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Washington

More than 200 people gather to urge action against child abuse and neglect in the Inland Northwest

by Nina Culver

The four names were read aloud in front of more than 200 people in Riverfront Park Wednesday.

Maliki Wilburn. Sequoia Smith. Quentin Warren. Adalynn Hoyt.

The children were killed and injured in the Inland Northwest within a span of two weeks.

“It's too many,” said Dena Chappell, who sits on the executive council of Spokane Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (Spo-CAN).

“We know we're gathered here tonight because the children are not well,” she told people who held candles while children played and laughed on the giant Red Wagon sculpture in the background.

Several of the speakers had a unified message: this must be fixed.

If you believe something is wrong, step in and offer assistance. Take away any stigma of asking for help.

Don't judge because you don't know the path others have walked, Chappell said.

“Parenting is the hardest job we will ever have,” she said.

Dr. Keith Georgeson, a pediatric surgeon at Sacred Heart Children's Hospital, spoke briefly about his work.

“I'm the guy that takes care of those kids,” he said. “When you see what these kids go through, it's frustrating.”

Georgeson said he has watched 100 children die from child abuse during his career. “We would love it if we never saw another child die from child abuse,” he said.

Amy Vega, executive director of the Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery, said sometimes parents are afraid to call her organization, which cares for children from birth to age 7 for parents who are having short-term trouble coping.

“We are not a phone call away from CPS,” she said. “We can be preventative. We can keep them out of the hospital.”

In an interview before the vigil, Vega said her organization has taken in children 5,000 times this year. Some come once, others return several times. But 3,000 times families were turned away because the nursery was full.

“The one thing we're missing in this is that we all have an obligation to help,” she said. “We need to learn to be supportive and helpful.”

Several members of the Guardians of the Children motorcycle club attended the vigil. The group of volunteers help support and protect children involved in child abuse. The members use “road names” to protect themselves and their families from abusers.

“We go to court with them as advocates,” said Shark, the vice-president of the club's Northwest Chapter. “We do whatever we can.”

Children called to testify in court are often frightened and need the support offered by club members, Shark said. “They've got us,” he said. “They just look at us and tell their story.”

Those at the vigil were urged repeatedly to get involved and to look out for the welfare of all children.

“We have a responsibility not to let this happen again,” Vega said.

Where the cases stand

Two men have been charged with murder in connection with two recent child deaths, but no charges have been filed in a third death or in the case of a shaken baby. All four cases were reported in the span of just over two weeks.

The first case was 16-month-old Maliki Wilburn in Coeur d'Alene. Police and medics were called to the 800 block of North Fifth Street on Aug. 26 on a report that a child was having difficulty breathing. They found Wilburn with “obvious head trauma,” according to the Coeur d'Alene Police Department. He was home alone with his stepfather, Joseph J. Davis, at the time he was injured.

Davis was arrested the next day; he was charged with first-degree murder after Wilburn died in the hospital.

Medics were summoned to 501 E. Baldwin Ave. in Spokane on Aug. 28 on a report of a child not breathing. Doctors said 2-month-old Sequoia Smith had “textbook” signs of shaken baby syndrome, including severe retinal hemorrhages. She also had bruising all over her body, new and healing rib fractures and a broken femur, according to court documents.

Her parents, Autumn Smith and Sebastian Smith, said she rolled off the bed and onto Sebastian Smith's steel-toed boots. However, both eventually admitted that Sebastian would shake Sequoia, according to court documents. Sebastian reportedly told investigators that he was frustrated because the baby wouldn't stop crying so he shook her very hard, court documents state. The case is still under investigation and no charges have been filed.

Medics were called to an apartment at 19625 E. Wellesley Avenue in Otis Orchards on Aug. 29 on a report of a baby not breathing. After they arrived, they called deputies. The medic who performed CPR on 3-week-old Quentin D. Warren said he saw no obvious injuries. The baby's cause of death has not yet been determined.

His parents, Melissa D. McCormick and Sean J. Warren, told deputies they had been out drinking the night before and couldn't locate the baby when they woke up, according to court documents. He was found face down underneath a recliner. Deputies wrote in court documents that the home was unkempt, with dirty diapers on the floor. The case is still under investigation and no charges have been filed.

Two-year-old Adalynn Hoyt was found dead in her home at 3022 E. 55th Avenue on Sept. 12. Her mother, Lovina Rainey, said she had gone out drinking the night before and left Hoyt and her three other children in the care of Jason J. Obermiller, a convicted felon who was wanted on a warrant. Obermiller has been charged with murder for her death, which the medical examiner said was caused by a single blow to the toddler's stomach.

Rainey is currently facing federal drug trafficking charges and a judge refused to grant her a furlough from jail to attend her daughter's funeral. Other people who lived in the home were convicted felons and one was also allegedly selling drugs.

According to court documents, U.S. Marshals came to Rainey's home a month before her daughter died looking for Obermiller, who was wanted on a warrant for probation violations. Rainey denied that he lived there, but witnesses later told investigators that Obermiller was there.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2016/sep/28/more-than-200-people-gather-to-urge-action-against/

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Pennsylvania

Opinion

Child Sex Abuse Letter

by Bill White

I wrote Sunday about the political decisions being made this week about how best to promote more access to justice for survivors of child sex abuse.

House Bill 1947 awaits action in the House, where it passed overwhelmingly earlier this year, only to be watered down by the Senate. House supporters will have to decide whether to accept the Senate version in the short time remaining in this session or to restore provisions in the original bill and hope the Senate will have a change of heart.

The chief point of contention is whether survivors who are blocked from civil suits by present -- and in some cases, older -- statutes of limitations should be granted some kind of retroactive access, either through a two-year window for everyone or, as laid out in the version the House passed, for those who are no older than 50.

One point I want to make, which I've made many times before, is that although much of the focus has been on the Catholic Church, the vast majority of abuse cases have nothing to do with clergy. These crimes also are committed by family members, family friends, teachers, coaches and others.

The Church gets most of the attention because it has lobbied so hard against these statute of limitations changes and because damning grand jury reports around the state have detailed crimes and coverups in some dioceses. One of those reports played a huge role in spurring legislative action this year, and a new grand jury is exploring abuse in the Allentown Diocese and elsewhere in Pennsylvania.

Anyway, the advocacy group The Center for Children's Justice emailed me a copy of a letter it sent this week to Gov. Tom Wolf and members of the Senate and House. I thought it was worth sharing with everyone else. Here it is:

Today, all across this Commonwealth, children are being sexually assaulted. Each of these children are courageously struggling to survive the assault against their body and spirit. More than likely, each of these children remain oblivious to the political debates unfolding about whether and how to reform the statute of limitations (SOLs) for childhood sexual abuse. Still every sexually abused child will be directly impacted by the decisions made before the 2015-2016 legislative session ends on November 30th.

Sexually abused children are in dire need of leadership and urgency on their behalf before November 30th.

The Center for Children's Justice (C4CJ) urges each of you to quickly identify where there is common ground on House Bill 1947 and to act expeditiously to enact reforms on behalf of the sexually abused child.

Reverting to the House passed version of House Bill 1947 seems inviting since it might lead Pennsylvania to further extend the civil SOL and then finally apply it retroactively.

Advancing an extended civil SOL that is applied retroactively powerfully recognizes that there are life-long consequences of childhood sexual abuse that impact physical health, emotional well-being, educational attainment, employability and social interactions. A retroactive provision also provides redress for the fact that justice for the sexually abused child of yesterday, the adult survivor of today, has been uneven and too often denied.

Still the PA Senate acted unanimously to strip the retroactive civil provision from House Bill 1947 that is a significant hurdle to overcome in the evaporating days of the 2015-2016 session. Also, the rightful anger that has resulted from the Senate's action has obscured other choices made by the Senate within House Bill 1947.

For instance, the PA Senate stipulated that the child being sexually assaulted today should have an unlimited period of time to file a civil claim against: the perpetrator or the person who conspired with another to bring about the abuse or a person having “actual knowledge” that failed to file a report with law enforcement or a county children and youth agency. Also, the Senate, like the House, waived sovereign and government immunity in childhood sexual abuse, but the Senate lowered the threshold to negligence (versus gross negligence).

Truth be told, neither legislative chamber passed a version of House Bill 1947 that is good enough for the child being sexually assaulted today or the adult who has survived past acts of childhood sexual abuse. There is still time to get to a better bill before November 30th.

C4CJ believes that as governor and as members of the PA House and PA Senate, you must find a path forward to give adult survivors of past acts of childhood sexual abuse – adults of all ages – the opportunity to initiate a civil claim no matter how long ago the abuse occurred. If, however, that path does not become a reality in the 2015-2016 legislative session each of you must commit to work together to:

1. Secure a retroactive provision related to civil claims for childhood sexual abuse early in the 2017-2018 legislative session; and

2. Enact, before November 30th, the other necessary and overdue SOL reforms woven into House Bill 1947 that will aid the child being sexually assaulted today.

C4CJ believes it is not only possible, but imperative for each of you to look beyond the conflict that has enveloped House Bill 1947 and to work overtime to find common ground. That path begins with comparing the House and Senate passed versions of House Bill 1947. In doing so it quickly becomes clear that there is common ground.

For example, overwhelming majorities of the PA Senate and PA House voted to eliminate the criminal SOL. 38 states have already eliminated, in whole or part, criminal SOLs related to childhood sexual abuse.

Majorities of the Pennsylvania General Assembly also voted this year, at a minimum, to extend (going forward) the civil SOL up to age 50. Finally, each chamber of the PA General Assembly also wants to waive sovereign and government immunity in childhood sexual abuse.

The courage of the sexually assaulted child should guide the decisions made on House Bill 1947. Children are counting on each of you to use the final days of the 2015-2016 legislative session to act with urgency and intention to protect every child in our Commonwealth from sexual abuse.

http://www.mcall.com/opinion/white/blog/

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California

Opinion

Bay Area Law Enforcement and Media Failed a Survivor of Sexual Exploitation

by Kate Walker Brown, Kimberly Chang and Elizabeth Sy

When the story of a teenager's exploitation at the hands of Bay Area police came to light earlier this year, we were sad and angry, but we were not surprised. We are an attorney, a counselor and nurse, and a physician, who have collectively worked for more than two decades with young people who are trafficked and exploited through the sex trade. Many of our clients and patients have told us about their disturbing encounters with law enforcement. They have affirmed that some police officers purchase sex, others offer to let individuals go in exchange for a sexual favors, and that still others have used the threat of arrest to keep our clients and patients from speaking out about the harms children and adults experience at the hands of law enforcement.

So when we learned that several Bay Area police officers coerced the young woman known as Celeste Guap, through their positions of power, into having sex with them in exchange for protection from undercover police operations and raids, we were not shocked.

What appalled and enraged us was the extent to which the Oakland Police Department (OPD) and other Bay Area law enforcement agencies were complicit in the manipulation and sexual abuse of this young woman. When a lone officer sexually assaults someone, you can call him a bad apple. But when upwards of 30 officers commit these crimes while others turn a blind eye—that's an epidemic. These events should make us question what was going on, how it happened, and how we are going to fix it so that others are not exploited in this way again.

To start this overhaul, several changes must take place. First, the media must stop victim-blaming this young woman.

Second, we should no longer rely on the police to be the primary institution that addresses sex trafficking. We must fund victim services through community-based providers and more appropriate agencies and diversify how these services are delivered so that they are not strictly tied to law enforcement agencies.

Finally, we need to implement new policies informed by those they are designed to protect, to hold law enforcement accountable, and ensure appropriate actions are taken when there is an abuse of power.

Stop Victim-Blaming

Sometimes it's hard to find the right words to describe a person or situation, we get it. We debated the terminology to use in this article, and discussed the ways in which the language people use to talk about human trafficking can sometimes ignore the agency and resilience of survivors. But portraying Celeste, a teenager, as a seductress that lured unsuspecting officers into bed with her? That's not only insulting, it's irresponsible. So journalists: do your job and find a way to accurately tell the story of what actually happened, and please stop participating in rape culture.

For the record, Celeste's experience meets the definition of human trafficking. According to the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Act, a human trafficking victim is a "person induced to perform a commercial sex act through force, fraud or coercion" or "in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age." Consequently, any commercial sex acts with police officers that occurred before Celeste turned 18 clearly meet the definition of trafficking.

After she turned 18, the trafficking and exploitation didn't stop. That law enforcement officers can choose to arrest someone like Celeste, give her information about what friends have been arrested, or tell her ahead of time to avoid a certain street because of an undercover police operation, demonstrates a gross abuse of power by the police. Such abuse of power is a form of coercion, and the officers engaged in these acts are human traffickers.

So if you're going to label her anything, drop the criminalized term "prostitute" for the accurate legal term "human trafficking victim." Some major media outlets have recognized the inherent contradiction of terms like “child prostitute" and "teenage sex worker." These outlets adopted a style guide created by Rights4Girls to use the appropriate language. This should be the industry standard.

Furthermore, we find it appalling that television and print media have repeatedly used photographs and videos of Celeste. She is a victim of sexual violence. She was trafficked and raped when she was a child, and again as an adult, and should be afforded protections and basic decency.

Stop Requiring Victims to Cooperate with Law Enforcement

In the past, child victims of sex trafficking had to be arrested before they could access social services or healthcare as victims of crime. Most healthcare and social services for trafficking victims were provided in juvenile hall. A system that criminalizes victims of trafficking as a precondition to getting help, is fundamentally flawed.

Additionally, survivors of sex trafficking are still required to cooperate with law enforcement agencies in order to access victims of crimes funding, resources and services. Used as a means to obtain witness testimony in the prosecution of traffickers, it further traumatizes and victimizes those who are fearful of their traffickers, bonded to abusers, and not ready to face their exploiters in court.

Services must be victim-centered—meaning cooperation with law enforcement should not be a requirement, but rather a choice. The emphasis should be placed on community-based organizations and agencies that are equipped to address the trauma associated with exploitation. These organizations exist in the Bay Area and have been around for decades providing healthcare and specialized services for exploited and trafficked children and adults. Advocates and providers have seen tremendous value in providing services to victims in the community. They are able to maintain familial connections while seeking help, avoid being in an unknown place without meaningful relationships, and can address trauma holistically by involving family and friends in treatment and transition planning.

We recognize that law enforcement does play a role in combatting trafficking. They often do come across victims as part of patrol and during operations. When officers encounter potential victims, they are required by mandatory reporting laws to report the suspected abuse to the child protection hotline. To our knowledge, Oakland Police Officer Brendan O'Brien did not fulfill his obligation when he first encountered Celeste, then a child, who was fleeing her exploiter. Had he acted differently, Officer O'Brien could have changed the entire trajectory of this case, and the course of Celeste's life. Also, officers should continue to focus on identifying the traffickers and purchasers who create the supply and demand for human beings.

In 2014, the California legislature appropriated $14 million to serve commercially sexually exploited and trafficked children through an interagency approach led by child welfare, the system created to serve abused, exploited, and neglected children. In 2016, an additional $5 million was added to this annual appropriation. These shifts of funding are steps in the right direction. We should also fund and build capacity of other sectors, such as community health centers, the educational system, and public health, as these are additional access points to reach this extremely vulnerable population.

What we have learned from the OPD sex crime scandal is that there are inherent dangers in using the police as the primary public agency entrusted to outreach to victims of human trafficking. We need to continue to fund and develop more community-based solutions that are prevention and intervention-based, getting at both root causes of vulnerability to being trafficked, and long-term care and support for traumatized victims.

Engage the Community in Developing a Solution

How is it that law enforcement officers' involvement in sex trafficking has gone unnoticed for so many years? And what are we going to do to prevent another child or adult like Celeste from being harmed by the police?

First, we applaud Mayor Libby Schaaf of Oakland and Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley for their leadership in investigating, firing, and eventually charging many of the bad actors. We hope other cities and counties follow their lead. But more must be done.

Because many community-based providers would assert that this type of abuse hasn't gone unnoticed, we should ask why the public hasn't heard about it. We posit that there has never been a meaningful or transparent process to field and resolve complaints about officers abusing power. So, at a minimum, we must start there.

We urge counties and law enforcement agencies to develop a robust grievance mechanism to ensure victims of trafficking have a way to report police misconduct. Without this process, victims have no recourse against abuses of police power. We believe that survivors and organizations working with victims of trafficking should be at the table to provide meaningful input at all stages of the development of future policies. Community input and transparency will strengthen the policies and encourage the buy-in necessary for stronger victim protection and accessibility. And given the chilling effect the OPD sex crime scandal will have on victims coming forward in the future, the policies must be widely distributed and posted within communities.

Additionally, we urge county and law enforcement agencies to revisit existing policies regarding physical contact during undercover operations. To our knowledge, varying levels of physical contact between Bay Area law enforcement and individuals involved in the sex trade is allowed in order to confirm solicitation, which typically occurs during undercover operations. The rules are far from consistent and have been abused by officers. We recommend that police officers are prohibited from physically contacting suspected victims of trafficking and individuals engaged in the sex trade. Furthermore, there must be policies that allow for the immediate termination of officers who break these rules. Los Angeles County has such a policy. Alameda County does not.

No one looks good in this scandal. But if all of us, media, law enforcement, policy makers and advocates seize the opportunity, we can make long overdue changes to help some of our most vulnerable and victimized children and adults.

Kate Walker Brown is an attorney and lead of the Child Trafficking Team at the National Center for Youth Law in Oakland, California.
Elizabeth Sy is a registered nurse and a cofounder for Banteay Srei, a community-based organization in Oakland, California that works with young Southeast Asian women at risk of or engaged in the underground sex trade.
Kimberly Chang, MD, MPH is a family physician at Asian Health Services in Oakland, California, and cofounder and Board Member of HEAL Trafficking.

Editor's note: Following her arrest in Florida, other media organizations published the legal name of the young woman who has called herself Celeste Guap because she is now 19-years-old. Attorneys who say they represent the young woman have also asked that her real name be used. The Express , however, is still not using her legal name because the young woman hasn't provided us with consent to identify her. We have seen no public statement made by her asking that her real name be used. She is the survivor of multiple alleged sex crimes, some of which were committed when she was a minor.

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/bay-area-law-enforcement-and-media-failed-a-victim-of-sexual-exploitation/Content?oid=4987512

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Missouri

Editorial

Assault victims: you are not alone

Two St. Joseph programs and events in coming days remind our community is blessed with caring advocates for those who are subjected to assault or abuse.

More than this, our supportive organizations focused on this concern are prepared to provide training and raise awareness throughout the community of the threats and how to respond.

In this way — if we take advantage of the offerings — we stand a chance to lower the risk of assault and abuse. Rather than focusing so much on making sure survivors have support, we can transition to celebrating successes in stopping these crimes before they occur.

The St. Joseph YWCA is offering free advocacy classes for a large targeted segment of the community — everyone from teachers and nurses to any caring adult — that is interested in volunteering with the agency.

The training is extensive, spanning four weeks and approximately 28 hours of instruction. Classes begin Monday, Oct. 3, and will be held from 5:30 to 9 p.m. every Monday and Wednesday through Oct. 26. For information or to register, call Carrie Turner, training and outreach coordinator, at 816-232-4481.

Beyond building awareness, this kind of training is intended to equip volunteers to help provide support and connect victims with services.

A related one-time event is on the calendar for next week. The Northwest Missouri Children's Advocacy Center is sponsoring a high-profile speaker in a program at the Missouri Theater. Marilyn Van Debur, who was Miss America in 1958 and has built a career as a motivational speaker, will bring a very personal message.

Van Debur will share her experiences in coming to grips with childhood sexual abuse perpetrated by her father for more than 12 years. Organizers are hopeful the presentation will help raise awareness and educate the public about the signs and effects of child abuse.

This program, “Miss America by Day,” is planned for 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 7. For ticket information, call 816-232-1744.

The YWCA says statistics show 1 in 6 women will be assaulted in their lifetime. The Children's Advocacy Center says it annually sees about 600 children for counseling, and this year it will exceed that number.

More awareness, more education, more training — all are needed to confront this challenge.

http://www.newspressnow.com/opinion/editorials/assault-victims-you-are-not-alone/article_3f93d59c-1700-56f0-a8ea-d9404a39ffac.html