Child Abuse Awareness Month
Robin Stein, Director of Response
Eric Crabtree-Nelson, Assistant Director of Response
When we think of child abuse, teenagers don’t readily come to mind as a population that would be impacted by physical, emotional and sexual abuse…yet they are, and more frequently than we’d like to think. For teenagers, abuse looks and feels different than for an 8 year old or even a 10 year old. Why is that?
Though most of us recognize that teens are not “mini-adults” they are often, physically larger. As they continue to develop, they can and do tower over parents and other adults with whom they may interact. Our perception is that teens can fight back – they are capable of protecting themselves. Yet, the power differential remains ever present between an adult and an adolescent. Size and age should not be considered a variable. Rather, abuse of anyone needs to be seen for what it truly is; an individual exercising power and control over someone less powerful then they are.
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What’s Going On This Summer?
Email ResponseOutreach@jcfs.org to RSVP or with any questions.
See you this summer!
Preventing Sexual Abuse: Beyond Mandated Reporting
Robin Stein, Director of Response
Eric Crabtree-Nelson, Assistant Director of Response
The words come screaming across the news crawl at the bottom of the screen, “Paterno out at Penn State”. For anyone who is interested in college football, this is a shock. What could possibly have caused this? Joe Paterno, a fixture as the coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions, holder of 409 career victories, forced out of coaching. More news comes out; Paterno supposedly knew about an assistant coach who was allegedly seen molesting a boy in the Penn State Athletic Complex, and simply told his superiors. As news organizations continue to dig, it becomes clear that there was a cover-up of epic proportions at Penn State.
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