Penn State Revisited
Penn State is back in the news, making now a good time to remember exactly what happened there
Children falling through the cracks
A 12 year old girl reports that her mother is starving her. Parenting classes won’t fix that but maternal home visiting programs will. If we fund them.
The Baby, the Bathwater and the Bad Mother
We love to write bills that punish cocaine-addicted mothers, but we don’t like to help them. Should we punish bad mothers?
Bill Cosby and the “look how well I turned out” defense
Bill Cosby joked about being abused as a child, and the punchline was “look how well I turned out”. That argument deserves re-examination.
Child abuse month. Top ten things you learn by listening to survivors
It’s child sex abuse month.There are things about being a sex abuse survivor that most people don’t know, but everyone should learn.
The facts behind missing children like Krystal Alvarez
Discover the facts behind missing children and the scary stories that we hear. How do you protect your child?
When the abuser is a child…
What if the abuser is a child. About 40% of child sexual abuse is committed by minors. Some are 17 years old. But some are very young children.
Incest: Why I keep talking about it
It’s never easy to talk about being raped. It’s never easy to use words like “incest” and “victim” about yourself. I still do it, and I have my reasons why.
A new old-fashioned look at mental illness
Our understanding of mental illness changed over the time, but it keeps going back to childhood experiences. The ACE study solidified that.
Sex offenders. Should we castrate them?
We all say we don’t like sex offenders, but we don’t like protecting kids from them, either
Should we invest in Maternal Home Visiting programs?
Testimony in New York State calling for Maternal Home Visiting programs to be broadly available as a way of dramatically reducing abuse and neglect.
A teacher was fired for sexual abuse
A teacher was fired for sexual abuse with students. No teacher should put students through sexual abuse. If one does, he or she should be fired
Babies born addicted to drugs
Opioids: a tiny addict is born every 19 minutes. Maternal home visiting programs protect children better than foster care but we’re not using them.
Outrage does not prevent child abuse
We’re shocked by stories of children murdered and horribly abused, but don’t spend enough to protect children through Maternal Home Visiting programs.
Five Murdered Children. One Solution. And No One is Talking About It.
New York City is dealing with a rash of murdered children. In the midst of finger-pointing, no one is talking about the one real solution to the problem.
I know where a dangerous sex offender lives… but I can’t tell you
I know the whereabouts and habits of a dangerous sex offender, the one who abused me. And until we change the law, there’s nothing I can do about it.
Maternal home visiting programs protect children from abuse and murder
Communities can prevent abuse with maternal home visiting programs that equip mothers, like VernayLah Laventure, to build healthy families
RIP Ariana Smyth
There are lessons that can be learned from Arianna Smyth’s death that would spare other children
Human trafficking, pedophile rings, and what you need to worry about
We can’t talk and learn enough about child sex trafficking and pedophile rings. Protecting children requires actions that are harder, and more mundane.
Child sex abuse: How much was I worth?
“As a 13 year old I didn’t use all the right labels, but words like “rape” and “incest” were the first.” We must protect children from child sex abuse
Are Most Child Sex Offenders Heterosexual?
The overwhelming majority of pedophiles and child sex offenders are heterosexual males. Pedophilia and homosexuality are as different as apples and oranges.
The cost of child sexual abuse
A study saying the cost of child sexual abuse within the Catholic church has cost $3.99 billion over the last 65 years shows taxpayers still foot the bill.