Resources available to assist abused children
Oct. 2—The recent beating death of a 6-year-old St. Joseph girl shocked the community and led to questions about what the community can do to protect children.
Organizations like Voices of Courage stand prepared to help prevent the type of tragedy that took the life of Jozlyn Beechner, but they say the challenge can be daunting.
Voices of Courage is a nonprofit that serves nine counties in Northwest Missouri to help child victims of abuse and trauma. The organization began in 1992 and started serving the community the following year. In 2018, it moved to its current location at 1807 N. Woodbine Road.
The mission of Voices of Courage is to "respond to child abuse through a team approach to prevent further trauma to children by providing a safe environment for them to disclose abuse and through public education to achieve a better community in which children can thrive."
Melissa Birdsell, executive director of Voices of Courage, said the organization begins working with children from the age they become verbal to 18.
"When a child comes forward and has made a disclosure of abuse, we work with law enforcement and children's division (Missouri Department of Social Services) to conduct the interview of that child," Birdsell said. "We can do that in a child-friendly and neutral way, so we're not someone who's looking for specific answers out of that child. We're not involved in the investigation. We're just a tool used in their investigation which allows the child to be able to speak and tell their story."
Birdsell said many of the cases they deal with involve children suffering some sort of sexual abuse.
"We see probably 60% to 65% of our caseload is sexual abuse which is really hard to spot because it's not like a bruise that we see under an eye or something like that," Birdsell said.
She said noticeable changes in a child can be a warning that abuse is happening.
"Maybe have a child who's been fairly compliant and a pretty good student becomes suddenly uncooperative. They're defiant ... just exhibiting a lot of behaviors that you're not used to seeing in them," Birdsell said. "Then that's when we want to start maybe asking some questions and finding out if they're OK and finding out if anything happened."
Other forms of abuse the team at Voices of Courage deals with are physical abuse, severe neglect, emotional abuse and exposure to pornography.
Voices of Courage can be reached at 816-232-1744.
The Missouri Child Abuse Hotline is another way that people can report suspicions to the authorities. The hotline is run by the Missouri Department of Social Services and is available 24 hours a day and seven days a week. According to the website, anyone can report abuse and can remain anonymous.
Those who are mandated reporters of child abuse and neglect can fill out an online report at apps.dss.mo.gov/OnlineCanReporting/default.aspx. Members of the general public can use the toll-free hotline number at 1-800-392-3738.
Riley Funk can be reached at riley.funk@newspressnow.com.
