With April being Child Abuse Prevention Month, Good Shepherd Health Care System took part in the annual Pinwheels for Prevention Friday outside the main entrance of the hospital.
Around 200 pinwheels were planted by children of hospital employees.
“We do this every April to raise awareness of child abuse prevention,” said Jessica Reker, director of Good Shepherd’s Community Health & Outreach. “Similar events are done all over the country in April.”
Good Shepherd partners with Umatilla-Morrow Head Start, who provided the pinwheels.
Why pinwheels?
“They’re whimsical, and a symbol of hope that our children can have healthy, happy and well-supported childhoods,” said Good Shepherd Marketing and Communications Director Caitlin Cozad.
According to the National Children’s Alliance, an estimated 600,000 children were victims of abuse and neglect in 2021, the most recent year for which there is national data.
Here’s a look at some other statistics on child abuse in the United States:
- Children in the first year of their life are 15% of all victims, and more than a quarter (28%) of child maltreatment victims are no more than 2 years old
- Girls had a victimization rate of 8.7 per 1,000 girls in the population, higher than boys at 7.5 per 1,000 boys
- In 2021, an estimated 1,820 children died from abuse and neglect in the United States. Boys have a higher child fatality rate at 3.01 per 100,000 compared to girls at 2.15
- Three-fourths (76%) of victims are neglected, 16% are physically abused, and 10% are sexually abused, and 0.2% are sex trafficked
- In 2021, a reported 452,313 perpetrators abused or neglected a child. In substantiated child abuse cases, 77% of children were victimized by a parent
Good Shepherd’s Safe Communities Coalition, a subcommittee of the Healthy Communities Coalition, has several focus areas including child abuse prevention and awareness, said Reker.
Reker said the current targets for child abuse prevention/awareness in Safe Communities’ action plan is to increase the number of community members who are able to define what constitutes as abuse (physical, emotional, and neglect elements), and increase utilization of local parenting classes. This group works in collaboration with community partner organizations to help disseminate information and education on a variety of topics around child abuse.
