Scott Sorensen is the chair of the advisory board for the Iron Country Children’s Justice Center which is one of 20 state funded centers set up to support victims of abuse and crimes against children.
“Usually the only opportunity we have to become involved is, sadly, after the fact," Sorensen said. "So if we could find a way to deal with individuals that might have any challenges about anger or a variety of things, if left unchecked, could lead to abuse. If we could find a way to educate our general population more and more to where we could have people really help themselves to check some of those challenges and difficulties or even thinking patterns we’d be doing a much better job rather than coming in after the fact.”
“Unfortunately, with sexual abuse, there’s never a clear boundary," said Kristin Parry whose daughters had been sexually abused. "You’re supposed to love your father, your uncle, your grandfather, your aunt - it’s so unclear.”
Parry said detectives arrived on her doorstep on March 7, 2011 after arresting her then-husband at the Utah State Capitol. He worked as a budget analyst and had sexually abused two of their five children.
“It was so hard," Parry said. "I actually had a strong visual as the detective told me how sever the abuse was. I felt like everything that I had ever hoped, or any thought of my future was on a whiteboard, and someone was just wiping it clean. I had no idea what I was going to do in the next five minutes, 10 minutes - how to live life.”
Parry’s younger daughter had just learned about child abuse and neglect from Prevent Child Abuse Utah, an organization that visits schools in Utah to educate children on how to identify abuse.
Carrie Jensen is the associate director of PCAU.
“We’re providing them some education and some tools to say, ‘If this is happening, this is how you can get help,'" Jensen said. "And kids participate, they ask questions, we do role-play - things with them we can act out, ‘Who could you go tell in a situation like this?”
Jensen said there is a lot of misinformation about who abusers are.
“There are a lot of myths about child abuse and who an abuser is and what they look like," Jensen said. "It really could be anyone so there’s not a clear definition.”
The national Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities is traveling the country to hear testimonies from states with both high and low rates of fatalities. Chairman David Sanders and other members of the commission were appointed by President Obama who directed them to gather information from across the nation to better understand the issue and how to eradicate the tragic loss of children.
Sanders said states with low child abuse and neglect fatality numbers don’t leave the burden of creating awareness on the shoulders of government agencies.
“When people think of who’s responsible for addressing abuse and neglect people think of the child protection agency," Sanders said. "But in the communities that we’ve seen that have taken this issue on, they’ve looked beyond the child protection agency to hospitals, law enforcement, schools, child care and made this a community responsibility.”
Commission member David Rubin is a pediatrician.
“The extent to which different programs that serve children and families kind of get out of their silos and communicate better with each other and integrate their approaches to make it easy for families to access their services," Rubin said. "Tends to result in better outcome that ensures no kid is going to slip through the cracks.”
Parry said her family’s recovery is in large part due to the support her community, PCAU, and the local authorities provided.
“So PCAU, and other programs like it, define those boundaries again for children to feel safe within those boundaries," Parry said. "And say, ‘No, I am okay to say ‘no’ here.’”
She said her best advice to anyone is to talk about it. Have the difficult conversations so that shame can be removed from the victims and healing can begin.