Class helps spread awareness of Child Abuse and ways to prevent

April is Child Abuse Awareness month, and ‘Madison Cares,’ wants you to know the proper steps to protect our children. On Wednesday, the organization hosted the class, “Darkness to Light- Stewards of Children.” It is to help community members learn to become confident and competent enough to know how to prevent sexual abuse and react skillfully if it occurs.

“We need to be that superhero in our children’s lives,” said Amanda Ashcraft, a participate in the class. “They need to know that we are there, they need to know that they can come to us for anything.”

Mothers, fathers, teachers, college students, community members around Madison County, made their way to the Madison Cares Education Building for the education series to discuss the heavy topic of child abuse.

“Darkness to light:” “It’s just mainly to help teach parents, community members anyone that’s willing to hear this message about how to protect our children,” said Deicy Beltran the facilitator of the class.

During the instruction, the class watched two videos that discussed sexual abuse among youth and heard messages from survivors. Some of the steps discussed were learning the facts, minimizing opportunities, talking about it, recognizing the signs, and reacting responsibly. It also helped inform the class of shocking facts, like 1 in 10 children being sexually abused by their 18th birthday.

“It’s important because a lot of times in certain communities people are in denial,” said Beltran. “They don’t think that it’s happening around us, but in the training that we take they teach us it’s everywhere, it’s anybody.”

After each video finished, the class engaged in group discussions to help get different view points, learn new ways to talk to your children about certain subjects, and other ways to protect children around you.

“You have questions come up that you can discuss with each other and you just learn that everybody kind of looks at it a different way,” said Ashcraft. “It’s awesome to learn from each their takeaways and their perspective.”

Discussions like this really do make a difference.

“Children are more protected today than they were in the past and that’s because people are speaking out,” explained Ashcraft. “Adults that want to help are learning ways to help, they know what to do.”

One of the biggest takeaways from this class?

“Everybody can use this class, everyone has children in their lives, everyone has children around them that they love,” said Ashcraft. “There’s not one single adult that couldn’t benefit from learning the things we talked about training.”

This way, children can have more of those “superheroes” in their lives.

If you’re interested in attending, the next “Darkness to Light” class will be held May 24th.

Beltran will also set up a on site trainings for a group of 10 or more. You can go through Madison Cares to get in contact.

You can find more information on how to prevent child abuse HERE.