PREVENING CHILD ABUSE, NEGLECT

Preventing child abuse and neglect is better than going into a situation where abuse or neglect have occurred and trying to correct the problem, say experts in the field. And the key to prevention, they say, is education.

"Prevention begins with education," said Frances Gould, Cape Girardeau County director for the Division of Family Services.

"One of our goals is helping everyone in the community know how to recognize abuse and neglect," she said.

Occasionally, however, a situation becomes dangerous to a child. In such cases, the child has to be removed from the home to insure his safety. DFS cannot remove the child from the home, but must work through local law enforcement. But it is not something they like to do.

"Our philosophy is to try to keep families intact, to keep families together," she said.

A key to keeping families together is teaching parents alternatives to abuse, said Barbie Underwood, Healthy Families State Coordinator for the Missouri chapter of the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse.

Often abuse occurs after children do something which the parents consider to be misbehavior. One way to prevent the abuse, Underwood said, was to make parents aware of how their children's behavior triggers reactions in them.

"Sometimes parents have unrealistic expectations of children, especially children under five years of age," Underwood said.

Some parents expect their five-year-old children to be emotionally and physically mature enough to take care of younger siblings or to make dinner for the entire family. When the child cannot do it, the parents lash out, sometimes violently, Underwood said.

Studies, in fact, have show a higher rate of abuse of children under five. In Missouri, 70 percent of all child abuse fatalities were of children five-years old or younger. Nationwide, the figure was seventy-seven percent.

The Exchange Club of Cape Girardeau, a local service organization working to prevent child abuse, has concentrated its efforts this year on Shaken Baby Syndrome.

The syndrome occurs when a parent or caregiver violently shakes a child, often because of frustration at not being able to get the child to stop crying. But the shaking of an infant can cause serious health hazards, even death.

Working to educate parents of the dangers of shaking their infants, the Exchange Club has taken brochures to the Family Resource Center at Southeast Missouri Hospital.

Recognizing the work of the Exchange Club, Cape Girardeau mayor Al Spradling III has issued a proclamation declaring the city's support of April as Child Abuse Prevention Month.