Child Abuse Prevention Month: Stepping in When it's Hard

April is Child Abuse Prevention Month, a time to focus on identifying, intervening in, and preventing abuse within our community. Foster families learn about the harsh realities of child abuse and neglect during the training process. Whether we hear it in the news, in biographies, or when those we know share their stories of abuse or neglect, it is sobering and stirs up difficult emotions to hear about the ways that children who live among us are being mistreated.

​If you are supporting a foster or adoptive family in their journey, you undoubtedly know someone who has been impacted by abuse or neglect. While you may or may not know the story of the child for whom your family is caring, you may have observed some of the impacts that trauma can have on child behavior and functioning. Although children are incredibly resilient, it makes sense that they may continue to struggle in some of the following areas:

• Difficulty learning or concentrating
• Hypervigilance, which means consistently assessing the situation and preparing for something bad to happen
• Excessive compliance, overly passive, or uncommunicative
• Fearful of being touched or approached by others
• Stealing money, objects, or food
• Abusing pets or animals as a means of having control over something
• Poor hygiene or uninterested in improving cleanliness. Sometimes poor hygiene is a way for someone to feel protected because they will less likely be approached by an offender
• Quickly attaching to strangers and displaying inappropriate physical touch

To increase your understanding and ability to support a kid from a hard place and the foster family caring for them, consider the following resources:

• Learn more about the foster care experiences through training and educational material.
• Attend a proclamation or prevention month activity in your area. Pinwheels for Prevention is a popular awareness activity. Contact your local human services agency for information on how to access a blue pinwheel to place in your yard or community.
• Read Three Little Words: A Memoir by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
• Read The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook-What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Love, Loss and Healing by Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz
• Read The Risk of Us by Rachel Howard, a fictional account of one family as they care for a highly traumatized child.
• Read Wounded Children, Healing Homes: How Traumatized Children Impact Adoptive and Foster Families by Jayne Schooner, Betsy Keefer Smalley, and Timothy J. Callahan, Ph.D.
• Watch Removed. There are now three parts to this series, two that highlight the journey of a sibling group placed into care, and one that highlights the experience of a different child and his kinship family while in care.
• Provide children with fun and creative hygiene products that might excite them about bathing, brushing their teeth, caring for their hair, and wearing clean undergarments.
• Engage children in sensory play activities that can help not only with building connection but can also help the child regulate emotions of fear and frustration. Pinterest is also a great place to find ideas!

If you know someone in your community demonstrating signs of physical abuse, sexual abuse and neglect, please help prevent child abuse and make a report of concern to the Colorado Child Abuse and Neglect Hotline at 1-844-CO-4-KIDS (1-844-264-5437). All calls made are confidential and reporters are kept anonymous. The report will be routed to the county where the child resides. If you witness an emergency or a child in a life-threatening situation, please immediately call 911.