Today, March 24, Covenant Children’s hosted their 5th Annual Child Abuse Summit to kick off Child Abuse Awareness month; which is honored throughout April. The Summit had a series of topics and speakers all aimed to educate physicians and the public on how to prevent child abuse here in Lubbock.
“We just got the statistics for 2016 on Tuesday and we had 1,210 confirmed cases of abuse or neglect for children here in Lubbock County. In 2015 in the state of Texas there were 170 deaths related to child abuse,” Belinda Waters, Trauma Coordinator at Covenant Children’s said.
Majority of the participants wore blue to the event and Waters said the color blue represents the bruises on children that should be recognized as early warning signs for abuse.
“There is a study that shows typically children with 4 bruises are at a higher risk of being abused. If you see 4 or more bruises in other areas besides the knees and shins we need to be worried about it that is some of the info we want to get out to the public,” Waters said.
Waters said one of their speakers, Jenna Quinn, at the Summit was a survivor of child abuse and she wants her team to learn from Quinn’s situation to help other kids in similar situations.
“She is a survivor of child sexual abuse and helped get a law passed in 2009 that has made it mandatory now that children receive appropriate child education from kindergarten through 12th grade. There are a lot of people who are survivors of child abuse or sexual abuse who aren’t willing to speak up,” Waters said.
This was the first of several events that will be held throughout the end of March and April. If you are looking to attend all of their events are listed on http://www.covenanthealth.org/About-Us/Newsroom/News-and-Announcements/2017/Covenant-Children-s-Hosting-Child-Abuse-Summit.aspx
