Campaign launched to reduce child abuse and trauma - Kansas

TOPEKA — Dozens of studies have shown that abused and neglected children tend to grow up to be unhealthy adults.

“The more adverse childhood experiences someone has, the more long-term health problems they will have as an adult,” said Vicky Roper, director of Prevent Child Abuse Kansas at the Kansas Children’s Service League. “In fact, their lifespans will be shortened.”

Kansas Children’s Service League is launching a five-year campaign in an effort to “stop ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) in the next generation,” Roper said.

Kansas Children's Service League is a nonprofit headquartered in Topeka that provides adoption, foster care and child abuse prevention services.

There are various sources of childhood trauma, Roper said.

“It’s not just abuse and neglect, it can be a child having an incarcerated parent, or a substance-abusing parent, or a parent with mental health issues, or domestic violence, or abandonment or divorce,” she said.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is providing grant support for similar campaigns in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, North Carolina and Washington.

But the Kansas initiative, called Kansas Power of the Positive, is being underwritten by money from the Health Care Foundation of Greater Kansas City, Morris Family Foundation, Christie Development Associates and the Junior League of Wichita.

The project’s initial design is scheduled to be discussed from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Friday at the Department for Children and Families Learning Center, 2600 Southwest East Circle Drive South, Topeka. The meeting is free and open to the public.

Featured speaker will be Sandra Alexander, a consultant with the CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention.

http://www.khi.org/news/2014/apr/24/advocacy-group-launches-campaign-reduce-child-abus/