When a child has been sexually abused on Cape Cod or the Islands, they go to Children's Cove, where medical professionals and law enforcement work together to get the information they need without retraumatizing the child.
But Children's Cove doesn't just deal with the aftermath of sexual abuse. They're also in the business of prevention. And recently, they've ramped up those efforts. CAI’s Gilda Geist spoke to Jacob Stapledon, who oversees community engagement and education programs at Children's Cove, about a new addition to the team.
Gilda Geist So, Jacob, there's been a new hire at Children's Cove. And according to the press release you folks put out, this is in response to growing requests for prevention education when it comes to child sexual abuse. So can we kind of get into that a little bit? What have you been hearing from the community and who have you been hearing from?
Jacob Stapledon Yeah, absolutely. So I've been at Children's Cove for a little more than eight years. There's always a great demand for training on how to recognize and respond to instances of abuse and in particular, child sexual abuse or other crimes against children. We've always been asking our community partners and talking with more community-based organizations over the last several years. And really, the request for prevention and for more education and training in youth serving organizations, in schools, has really been there. It's been growing, and we're really trying to make sure that we're meeting the demand of education out in the community.
GG So now can you introduce us to this new hire, Heidi Friedel? What is her role at Children's Cove and how will that fit into the work that you and your colleagues do?
JS Yeah, we're really happy to have Heidi joining us. She's taking on the role as the community programs coordinator with our work in education and training and outreach. There's a lot we do with, not just the community, but our multidisciplinary team as well—as professionals in law enforcement and mental health, child protection, first responders and mandated reporters. However, that leaves us a little bit stretched if we're trying to float between both of those worlds of the community as well as professionals. So Heidi will really be taking on the role as our community programs coordinator to be offering community awareness, going to events out in the community resource fairs to raise awareness of the mission of our organization. Unfortunately, still, people don't really know who we are unless their family needs to utilize our services. So raising awareness that we are here, how we're providing that support in partnership with the rest of Barnstable County Government Services, but also really providing that community education, parent education, prevention, getting people access to resources. And that requires a lot of other hands to help out with this, so she'll be coordinating our volunteer program as well to really increase our reach across the Cape and Islands.
GG So now I'm going to ask a kind of a devil's advocate type of question—how far can prevention take us? Like, how much of a difference can prevention really make when it comes to these things that can happen to kids?
JS You know, it's really hard when you think about prevention. How do you measure the impact of prevention, right? If you prevented something, you can never know that you did it. However, when we think about all areas of safety in our lives, we think of fire safety, education, water safety, sharps, firearm safety, right? How do we ensure that firearms are safe in homes? That's because of safety education. It's about really looking at how we prevent issues from happening. And when we look at preventative measures that take place—whether it's for our health or whether it's safety in automobiles, wearing seatbelts and airbags—when we look proactively towards prevention, we can see the difference that it makes. And so when we are looking at prevention, not just at one particular area of only looking at child sexual abuse, but how can we strengthen families? How can we increase protective factors within families and within homes and within youth serving organizations and as a community? When we look at something like child sexual abuse, this is a community issue and it requires a community to come together so that we can say, “Not on our watch.” We can do something to make a difference for the future of our children.
GG What can people expect that might be like new or up and coming from Children’s Cove?
JS Yeah. Right now, one of the biggest things that we're trying to put together and really identify how we can make a larger impact is online safety education. One of the bits of information that we have right now is that the referrals for online crimes against children—those numbers are really going up. And we know that there is a concern out in the community about that, and so we're working with some local partners to bring some fantastic education to the community on how we really can make a difference in prevention of online facilitated crimes against children. So more to come.
For more information and resources on preventing crimes against children, check out ChildrensCove.org.
