Child Abuse Prevention Month starts off with training at Medford Library

Medford, Ore — April is Child Abuse Prevention Month and local non-profits are educating the public about how to spot and prevent potential abuse.

Preventing child sex abuse was front and center at a meeting of human service workers and the general public hosted by the Children’s Advocacy Center of Jackson County.

“It’s about a 2 hour program where we watch some videos of survivors of child sexual abuse, talk about ways to prevent it, how to identify it and what to do should an instance of child sexual abuse come up,” said Volunteer Facilitator Katie De Vry.

The training, called “Darkness to Light” offers vital information to those who work with children.

“The goal is to really identify risk situations where children who are at risk and how to protect and how to respond to children when they tell you something and you have no idea what to say back,” said CACJC’s Therapy Director Catherine Zern.

The Children’s Advocacy Center of Jackson County wants to reach a goal of 10% of adults trained in responding to the signs of potential sexual abuse.

“Most children who are sexually abused are sexually abused by somebody who they know so something that we talk about a lot in the training and something we want parents to know is be aware of the people that are in the inner circles and know they can be perpetrators too,” said De Vry.

With every adult educated, the Center hopes more children will be saved from situations where abuse may occur.

“As they can begin to identify those risky situations, they can begin to remedy them,” said Zern.

Events and training for child abuse prevention are going on all month long. You can find more information on how you can get involved visit https://cacjc.org/trainings/