Each year April marks Child Abuse Awareness/Prevention month and proclamations are read and adopted throughout our county to ask members of our communities to take a stand — to stand up for the rights of children to live free of abuse and neglect.
In Texas, more than 50,000 children are in the temporary managing conservatorship of the state child protection system. Every eight minutes in Texas a child is a victim of abuse and neglect.
In 2019, 708 children were confirmed victims of abuse in Galveston County. These numbers show our community isn’t immune to the effects of substance use disorders, mental illness or domestic violence — contributing factors why families come in contact with the child welfare system.
In instances where imminent risk of continued abuse and neglect are present, children are removed and placed in the temporary managing conservatorship of the Child Protection System in our community.
This experience for a child is traumatic in so many ways; separation from their parents/caretakers, placement in unfamiliar surroundings, loss of their prized possessions, a likely change in school therefore a loss of connections to their school family and feelings of abandonment. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, these adverse childhood experiences are a leading cause of adult onset of a variety of health conditions when early intervention is not experienced.
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