BY ANY MEASURE

COVID is punishing AT RISK CHILDREN at a rate and severity never seen before.

How can we help them?

Tracking and reporting issues of violence, trauma, neglect and abuse of children is not transparent or robust – it never has been.

Few people are aware of the terrific impact trauma has on children and how much of it there is.

We see the results of childhood trauma daily in crime, school failure and rates of incarceration but don’t understand how childhood trauma drives bad behavior.

Only a percentage of abuse, neglect and violence against children is ever reported. Only the most awful cases become known outside the victim’s family or circle.

We are living in a world where COVID is pounding on at struggling families and at-risk children.

The stresses that existed pre COVID are worse now. This is increasing the severity and amount of violence and trauma at-risk children are living with today.

More children are locked in toxic homes without access to teachers or other mandated reporters that could help them.

Teachers, social workers, law enforcement and other mandated reporters were already struggling to keep up and provide safety and relief to children pre COVID.

It has become harder for them to keep children safe from domestic violence, mental health crisis, school failure, suicide, child abuse, crime and sex trafficking.

WHAT TO DO?

THESE THINGS WILL HELP;

Schools, law enforcement and child welfare need our support to succeed. We will never all agree on how to police, teach or care for children. We must agree that the people doing the work need training, resources and our support to succeed.
Support local school initiatives, early childhood and after school programs, and programs that diminish punishing traumatized children. Expulsion from school is expulsion from the community. Incarceration has filled our juvenile and criminal justice system to beyond capacity with a 90% 9-year recidivism rate in the prison system today. Most violent and serious crime is committed by juveniles.
Become aware of trauma and what it does to children. You will treat misbehaving youth differently once you understand what made them who they are. They need our kindness and support to become participating members of our community. Anything less that this will build more prisons and break more schools.
Become aware of the issues and difficulties facing teachers, law enforcement officers, social workers, at risk children and families. When you have done so, you will see how important community support for the people, programs and policies that help at risk children and families are.