PHOTO COURTESY OF GSHCS
On Friday, April 1, more than 20 children from Good Shepherd Health Care System’s (GSHCS) employee children’s center placed pinwheels on the front lawn of GSHCS as part of an effort to prevent child abuse.
The children were taking part in Prevent Child Abuse Oregon’s (PCA Oregon) 2016 Pinwheels for Prevention® campaign. PCA Oregon and its community partners are stepping up campaign activities during April in recognition of National Child Abuse Prevention Month.
April is Child Abuse Prevention Month and GSHCS is joining with Prevent Child Abuse Oregon to encourage people across the state to take simple actions every day that make a difference in the lives of children. These “extraordinary ordinary” actions can be anything from organizing neighborhood activities to offering to babysit for a neighbor. There are many things going on across the state outside of Child Abuse Prevention Month that are making a difference in the lives of children and families.
“At Good Shepherd we want encourage the communities we serve to pay attention to the simple things that can be done to ensure great childhoods for all children, in Umatilla and Morrow counties,” said Director of Marketing and Communications Nick Bejarano. “Our children [represented by our employees children] are our future, and if we work to make the ordinary extraordinary not just during April but every day, we can go a long way toward creating the kind of world where all children are celebrated and where abuse and neglect never occurs.”
According to Prevent Child Abuse Oregon, people around the country are often involved in activities or actions that make a difference without even realizing it, and during April the organization is committed to shining a light on these kind of actions in order to help show that they are occurring statewide and being undertaken by people from all demographics.
“You might not even realize that what you’re doing is enhancing the lives of the children and families you know,” said Pamela Heisler, Prevention Specialist at the Children’s Trust Fund of Oregon. “Every time you knock on a neighbor’s door to see if they need help with babysitting or homework, or reach out to someone being bullied by refusing to be a witness, volunteer at a local child-serving agency or even take a stand for a program or policy that you feel should be part of your community, you’re doing something extraordinary.”
“We know that people in our community are making a difference in the lives of children every day, and we want to celebrate that,” said Bejarano. “We want to make the idea of preventing child abuse and neglect a very ordinary one.”
