April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month

Volume 6 April 2011

Coming Events:

Easter on Parade

April 24, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Join us at Easter on Parade, a

family event on Monument Avenue between Davis and Al-

len. SCAN will host children's activities and sell Pinwheels for

Prevention.

9th Annual Windsor Farms

Progressive Dinner & Auc-tion

April 30 During our biggest fundraiser

of the year, SCAN welcomes party goers to the Windsor

Farms neighborhood for great

food, amazing auction items, beautiful homes and and good

company. To learn more about auction prizes and the schedule

of events, please visit the Pro-gressive Dinner website.

Morton's Charity Dinner

May 5

Join us for dinner and try the pre fixe menu during Morton's

Philanthropy Week. $25 of each meal will benefit SCAN.

California Pizza Kitchen

May 26 Visit us for lunch or dinner dur-

ing this all-day event benefit-

ting SCAN in Short Pump Town Center. 20% of the proceeds

will benefit SCAN.

During April, SCAN increases its efforts to raise awareness about child abuse and neglect in our community. Last year, 470 children were involved in cases

of founded abuse and neglect in the Greater Richmond area. During this time, SCAN helped more than 1,000 children and families who were at-risk of experi-encing or already experienced child abuse and neglect. We reach many more families through our Families Are Magic (FAM) Prevention Program, approxi-

mately 25,000 each year. This year, our National Child Abuse Prevention Month campaign theme

is "Empathy." Empathy, the ability to feel what someone else is feeling even if you haven't had the same experience, is a cornerstone to a healthy, produc-tive society. Have you read our Style Weekly insert? Have you been able to

download our information packet? Have you read our activities page to learn how you and your family can become more empathetic? Please learn

more at www.FAMRichmond.org.

Happy Birthday, SCAN!

Monday, April 18, marked SCAN’s

20th Anniversary. While we are cele-

brating this all year, we had a

“birthday party” to commemorate

the exact date. Thank you to those

of who contributed to our campaign

during the past several weeks. If

you have not donated to help us

reach our goal of $20,000, please

consider giving a gift now.

As you make contributions of time,

effort and money to our work to pre-

vent and treat child abuse and ne-

glect in the Greater Richmond area,

we’d like to share with you the im-

pact of your efforts, no matter how

small or large. As you will read, they

extend far beyond today and tomor-

row and impact our community for years to come.

Volume 6 April 2011

The Mental Health Costs of Abuse and Neglect

Bon Secours Health System Tuckahoe Woman’s Club

VSC Fire & Safety, Inc. Apex Systems Deloitte

Creative Office Environment Jenkins Foundation Children Advocacy Centers of Virginia

The CarMax Foundation The Family and Children’s Trust Fund Brandermill Rotary Club

National Children’s Alliance Harris Financial

Thank You to our Recent Corporate Supporters!

According to the National Survey of Child and Adolescent

Well-Being, which surveyed 6,200 children from birth to

age 14, mental health problems resulting from abuse and neglect carry into the grade school years and likely into adulthood. For those who were in founded cases of abuse or neglected as infants, 48% carried mental health ill-

nesses into early adulthood. These mental health costs add up down the line when children drop out of school, are expelled from school, find themselves in juvenile de-

tention centers and falling victim to substance abuse. Recent studies have indicated a significant increase in

Serious Emotional Disturbance (SED) among young chil-dren ages 2 to 6. Walter Gilliam, PhD, author of Pre-kindergartners Left Behind: Expulsion Rates in State Pre-kindergarten, found that 10.4 percent of preschool teach-

ers in Virginia expelled one or more children in 2009. Vir-ginia expulsion rates were among the highest in the country. According to Gilliam’s research, many of these

expulsions were the result of SED or other behavioral challenges, which are more prevalent in young children who experience trauma as a result of extreme poverty,

homes where there is caregiver substance abuse, homes where one or both caregivers have mental health ill-nesses, homes where caregivers lack social support and homes in which children witness domestic violence. We

know that abuse and neglect occurs at much higher rates in these volatile environments.

A therapeutic pre-

school program

like our new Circle Preschool Program can reduce the need for costly in-

tervention services down the line for children suffering

from the effects of abuse and neglect. In addition, thera-

peutic preschool programs contribute to the develop-ment of a prosperous workforce. According to early childhood development expert J. Ronald Lally, PhD, 50 years of research supports high quality early childhood

education as “the most economically viable approach to building better students and productive citizens.” In ad-dition, Nobel Prize winning economist James Heckman’s

analysis of the Chicago Child Parent Center Study esti-mated $48,000 in benefits to the public, per child, from half-day preschool attendance by at-risk children. The

study found that participants at age 20 were more likely to have finished high school, less likely to have been held back, less likely to receive remedial help and less likely to have been arrested. By investing in the most at

-risk children through the Circle Preschool Program, SCAN is also investing in our area’s economic future.

Computer Resource Team Troutman Sanders

Richmond Capital Management Estes Express Lines James River Petroleum, Inc.

JBR Advisors, LLC JoycePayne Partners Morgan Keegan/Regions Bank

The Hodges Partnership Thomas Rutherfoord M&T Bank

Markel Corp Village Bank

Volume 6 April 2011

Kathleen and Gerard Albanese

Dottie Amore

Trina and Roy Anise

Kelly and Tiffany Armstrong

Lindley and Coby Beck

Cathy and Howard Bos

Kathryn and Matt Brotherton

Carter and John Bryan

Leemore and Alan Burke

Daisy and Tom Byrd

Eva Cabaniss

Jennifer and David Campbell

Jeff Chandler

Andrea and Robert Clark

Kevin Collier

Nona and Bill Collin

Rose and Josh Dare

Susan and Bob Dausch

Dr. Trudy Rickman and Chuck Dean

Carrie and Bob Delille

Mark Dillon

Theresa DiMarco

Lawrence Eiben

Anne Marie and Scott Elles

Jean and Rob Estes

Dena Frith and Chris Moore

Betsy and Bobby Fauntleroy

Dana and Gray Garland

William Ginther

Bruce Gottwald

Mary Anne Graf

Martha and John Grover

Sasha and Michael Hogan

Diane and Gene Hosenfeld

Billy Hupp

Kari and Heath Hyman

Gail and Earl Johnson

Kimberly and William Johnson

Carrie and Tommy Johnstone

Cindy and Michael Joyce

Margaret and Jerry Keightley

Jen and John Kostyniuk

Amy and Byron Ladd

Elizabeth and Michael Martin

Cathy and Read McGehee

Mindy and Massie Meredith

Jasper Mersereau

Caroline and Marshall Morton

Jay Olander

Leslie Parpart and Kurt Friday

Dorothy and Stan Pauley

Scottie and George Phillips

Kevin Purnell

Kathleen and Bob Redmond

Michael Sieja

Dorinda Smith

Syral and Bud Specter

Martha and Bobby Speight

Charlie Stallings

Judith Strickler

Eric Sundberg

Letty and Bill Tate

Margaretha and Jose Valderas

Thank you Protector’s Circle 2010-2011 Members

Abes for Babes

Have you been collecting pennies for

our Abes for Babes campaign?

You can bring pennies you collect to

Ellwood Thompson’s on April 30 from

12 p.m. to 3 p.m.

The Legal Costs of Child Abuse and Neglect When children are involved in cases of abuse and

neglect, they often enter into an extensive legal

process. There a number of law enforcement offi-cials, lawyers, social workers and physicians who become involved. The cases can last a long time and there is often an overlap in services and the

child may not receive the best outcome, possibly putting them in unsafe homes again.

Richmond CASA volunteers reduce the time chil-dren spend in the legal system by facilitating com-munication between the parties and gathering

valuable information to assist the judge in making proper decisions for permanency, thus helping to ensure the safety of the children. Social workers carry large caseloads, which can impact the time

they can dedicate to each case. CASA recruits, trains and supervises volunteer advocates to pro-vide this individualized attention. Richmond CASA

volunteers communicate with all the case stake-holders to learn their view of the child’s circum-stances. While gathering this information, CASAs

encourage collaboration among social workers, mental health workers, police officers, attorneys, teachers, and physicians.

Richmond CASA’s impact in the Richmond commu-nity is seen in the reduction of child welfare costs

and the reduction of the time children spend in the

system.

In the past quarter alone, our CASA volunteers saved $20,764.32,

which is the calculated equivalent value of 956 CASA volunteer

hours. In total last year, our CASA volunteers and case managers saved $117,103. On April 14, SCAN swore in our latest class of vol-unteers and now has a total of 87 CASA volunteers who are work-ing to support the judicial process to ensure children are placed in

safe, permanent homes. Visit our Facebook page to view photos. At the Child Advocacy Center, SCAN similarly works to foster a

more effective, collaborative and child-focused method of investi-gating, treating and prosecuting local cases of child severe sexual and physical abuse by providing a physically and psychologically

safe place for abused children to receive services and by forming a multidisciplinary team to better manage and track cases. The team is a partnership among a variety of disciplines, including law en-forcement, Department of Social Services, Commonwealth’s Attor-

ney, and VCU Medical Center’s Child Protection Team. The CAC provides the central location through which team members can ef-fectively coordinate their efforts to achieve satisfactory case resolu-

tion and ensure that the needs of victims and their families are be-ing met. This process saves the community costs from overlapping services and also encourages swifter, more accurate prosecution of

offenders.

Volume 6 April 2011

The Health Costs of Child Abuse and Neglect According to an article in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, long-term healthcare costs are 16% higher for women who have experienced child sexual abuse and 36% higher if they experienced both sexual and physical abuse. In addi-

tion to other long-term mental and physical effects, severe physical abuse and sexual abuse during adolescence have dose-response associations with risk of type 2 diabetes among adult women according to an article in the American Jour-nal of Prevention Medicine.

Child abuse often impacts a greater number of children than you may think. For example, child sexual abuse is 167 times more likely than autism in children, which impacts 12 in every 10,000 children, according to the National Institutes of Health. Child sexual abuse is 75 times more common than pediatric cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute.

At the Child Advocacy Center, SCAN works to reduce the effects of severe physical and sexual abuse. These effects can be worsened by multiple interviews with many different professionals during the investigation of their case. The CAC co-

ordinates one comprehensive forensic interview in a safe, friendly environment. In addition, the CAC provides intensive mental health treatment for victims and their non-offending parent(s). These services help children and their families overcome the devastating effects of child abuse so that they can move forward to healthier futures.

Through our Family Support Program, we educate, support and treat parents who face challenges that put them at greater risk of abusing or neglecting their children. Last year, SCAN served 384 caregivers in our Family Support Pro-gram, arming them with tools to avoid hurting their children. In addition, we served 181 children in children’s groups,

teaching them how to protect themselves and cope with difficult home situations. We truly believe we can reduce the numbers of children affected by abuse and neglect in our community. By working with parents, SCAN can stop abuse before it happens or prevent it from occurring again.

Happy Birthday, SCAN!

Thank you staff

and volunteers!