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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Preventing Child Abuse: Every Child Deserves to Grow Up Happy

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Wednesday, April 8, 2015   

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - Child abuse is preventable, but tens of thousands of Illinois children are victims of abuse or neglect every year.

As a result, said Roy Harley, executive director of Prevent Child Abuse Illinois, children can experience emotional, psychological and physical problems that last a lifetime. It's Child Abuse Prevention Month, and Harley said they use the pinwheel as a symbol to remind Illinoisans that all children deserve a happy childhood.

"Great childhoods mean that they grow up in healthy, nurturing, caring families and communities," he said. "And each of us has a responsibility to make that happen for kids, so that they will have a great childhood, which allows them to grow to their full potential."

Harley said child abuse can be prevented through programs and policies that support families. Illinoisans can help, he said, by offering to babysit or provide a meal for a neighbor family or volunteering at church or school, or in social-service programs for families in their community.

Friday is "Wear Blue Day" for child-abuse prevention.

Harley said neglect and physical or sexual abuse typically is what comes to mind when people think about child abuse, but emotional abuse also is common and destructive.

"The kind of abuse that destroys a child's sense of self-esteem, a child's sense of competency - in which a child is belittled or blamed, or demeaned constantly," he said, "and that is exceptionally costly to the child's well-being."

It's estimated that substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect in Illinois have jumped more than 25 percent since 2006. Harley said he believes it correlates to decreased funding for programs that support families.

"We've seen cutbacks in home visiting programs, to child care - we've even seen cutbacks in Child Protective Services, which is responsible to ameliorate the issues of child abuse and neglect once they do occur," he said. "We have to support funding for these kinds of programs."

The Illinois Department of Child and Family Services estimates that more than 100,000 cases of abuse go unreported each year.


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