By JOHN HOINSKI
Staff Writer
If anyone believes the problem of child abuse in
Wyoming Valley is a passing phase that will eventu-
ally wear itself out, here are some alarming facts to
keep in mind:
— A recent study claims that one out of every five
girls and one out of every 11 boys will be sexually
misused by the time she or he reaches 18.
— 50 per cent of all children misused will never tell
anyone.
— The average age of the sexually misused child is 8
years old.
— An estimated one in 20 Americans are victims of
incest.
— A survey by the American Humane Association
shows a 200 per cent increase in reports in sexual
abuse in 1976.
Although these figures deal on a national level, they
also apply to some degree here in Luzerne County. In
the valley alone, the Victims Resource Center
reported a four per cent increase in Child Sexual
Abuse last year, dealing with 485 clients during fiscal
year 1984-85, including 59 per cent of whom were under
18 years of age.
Fortunately, the VRC is doing an excellent job in
helping young people identify and cope with these
experiences and has been awarded on a national level
for its efforts. The center’s programs were recognized
by the Economic Development Council and given the
Pocono Northeast Community Award, and are distrib-
uted state-wide as a model for programming through-
out Pennsylvania.
Under the VRC’s “Child Safety Program” children
are being taught to say ‘no’ in what they feel are
threatening situations, along with helping them
teacher, friend or school nurse. Perhaps more impor-
tantly, they are being told to tell.
“We started with these programs because a major-
ity of our clients are children,” Carol Lavery,
Executive Director. of the Victims Resource Center,
said. “A few years ago the only available literature
were the ‘Stranger Danger’ types, telling children to
stay away from people they didn’t know. But the truth
is that in 75 per cent of the cases, the child knows who
the abuser is.
“We're trying to get the children to say, ‘hey, even
though I'm a child I have a right to say ‘no.’ When a
child is abused the person will tell them not to tell
anyone. We're saying to them, ‘tell,’ it’s important.”
The center, which is funded by the United Way,
presented over 200 programs . to school children
throughout the Valley last year and has over 300
scheduled for this year. These programs are con-
ducted by specially trained speakers, for free, to any
children’s groups, small communities or churches.
“We’ve been teaching mostly in a classroom set-
ting,” Lavery explained. ‘‘Children are more comfort-
able in a class. We found that the lectures are not very
effective in a situation where there are 90 to 100
people. But aside from the presentations themselves,
we like to get them reinforced by the teachers and
parents.
“Usually, we deal with the PTA and let them know
exactly what we are doing and how we can get the
best results. And we’ve been getting a lot of positive
feedback,” Lavery continued.
“But you know, it’s interesting when you talk to
some of the parents, sometimes they will remember
an experience that they went through as a child. You
might remember how all the kids in the neighborhood
used to say stay away from a certain man because he
was bad. So the problem has always been there.”
But now there are places like the Victims Resource
Center to help deal with it.
leased.
story.
LL against the center itself.
‘By JOHN HOINSKI
Staff Writer
There was a time when Luzerne
County officials did not pay much
attention to child abuse problems.
Not because they didn’t care, but
because it was a rarity. It just
didn’t happen here. That was some-
thing that always happened in
‘“‘other towns.”
“But, the truth is the Wyoming
Valley is no different than anywhere
else, and sexual child abuse is no
longer being put on the back-burner,
“I remember years ago a gentle-
man by the name of Ken Wooden
was giving a lecture,” former Dis-
trict Attorney Robert J. Gillespie
said. “He had written books like,
‘Weeping in Playtime,” and now T
believe he is working nationally for
20-20. But when we started talking
about child abuse, he asked me how
many reported cases we had. I said,
‘Ken this is just a small town, we
get maybe two or three a year.’ He
said, ‘you're being grossly under-
reported.’”’
“Then after the Jodziewicz case,
we were getting more reports on
child abuse. We started working
with the Children and Youth Serv-
ices and we began receiving 40 to 60
calls a month,” Gilespie continued.
“But out of those 40 to 60, maybe
five were prosecutable. But even
then it was sometimes difficult to
prove. How do you prosecute some-
one when the child is only three or
four months old? Obviously, the
child can’t testify so sometimes it
can be very frustrating.”
Because of the number of cases
being reported and the exposure
being devoted to them, it seems the
abuse problem in the county is
rampant. But authorities say that
may not necessarily be true.
“After talking with experts in this
field I don’t think the number is
rising,” Gillespie said. ‘But
because of the media attention that
is given, it may seem that way.”
Joe Loftus, Director of the Luz-
erne County Children and Youth
Services, also agrees that it is a
major concern but, he, too, isn’t
sure of the actual number of inci-
dents.
“There seems to be an increase in
child sex abuse cases, but I can’t
say for sure,” Loftus stated. “I
don’t know the exact numbers.
Maybe it just seems that way
because of the media coverage and
concern and because there is so
much public awareness.
‘Now we are going into the
schools and lecturing on child abuse
and making people more aware of
the problems. And the public in
general is also more conscious.”
The District Attorney’s office,
under the guidance of Gillespie, also
became more involved and estab-
lished a child abuse unit, the first-
ever in county history
“When we first started the pro-
gram, I appointed Gary Sworen to
the unit,”” Gillespie explained.
“Then Bruce Anders, who was also
a member of the district attorney’s
staff, joined him and eventually we
hired another person by the name of
Melissa Church. Hiring her also
gave us another dimension because
children are better able to relate to
her than to males. Children are
uncomfortable with a male, so
having her aboard is a big help.”
But, even with a successful prose-
cution, there is another area of
concern that is equally as frustrat-
ing as the abuse itself — life after
jail. Unfortunately, confinement is
not the answer. It only suspends the
sickness of the individual for a time,
but it does not cure it.
“We have got to realize that for
every abused child there is a perpe-
trator who is responsible,” Loftus
said. “We just can’t give them a jail
sentence and put them on probation.
Putting them in jail won't stop their
behavior. We have to get treatment
for the them.”
Gillespie agrees that incarcera-
tion is not enough, but right now
there is no other alternative.
“Unfortunately no one has been
able to prove pedophiles can be
helped,” Gillespie said.
Although the problem can turn
into a vicious cycle, at least the first
steps have been taken to correct it.
Abuse!
By JOHN HOINSKI
Staff Writer
(EDITOR’S NOTE: The following
story is true as told by an actual
child-abuser. The name, however,
has been changed in order to pro-
tect the identity of the actual person
involved.)
Jane is a 32-year old housewife
and the mother of two children. She
is intelligent, warm and loving. And
she is a former child abuser.
For the past year, Jane, with the
help of Parents Anonymous, has
refrained from taking her frustra-
tions out on her children, and now,
in fact, is involved with the PA self-
help program as a guest lecturer
and counselor for individuals who
have experienced similar problems.
But for three and a half years, she
was a raging fury who never hesi-
tated to vent her anger towards her
children.
“The whole problem started to
develop right after the birth of my
son,” Jane explained. ‘After the
novelty of being a mother wore off,
I became depressed for about three
or four months. I didn’t care about
myself. I didn’t care about my son.
I wouldn’t even change his diapers,
that’s how bad it got. My sister-in-
law or my mother would take care
of him and see to his needs.
“Eventually we moved here from
New York, which was about five
years ago, ‘and things got worse, We
didn’t have much money and my
husband was only bringing home
$130 a week. We couln’t go any-
where because we didn’t have
S.A. Smith
named to
directors
Shirley Ann Smith, RN, M.S.N.,
Clinical Specialist in Oncology and
Coordinator of the Hospice Program
at the Wilkes-Barre VA Medical
Center, has been elected to a three
year term on the Board of Directors
of the Pennsylvania Hospice net-
work (PHN). The PHN, made up of
Hospice programs and promotes the
Hospice . concept for terminally-ill
persons through legislative, ethical
and educational procedures.
Mrs. Smith is a graduate of USC-
Los Angeles County Medical Center
School of Nursing in California,
Bloomsburg University and the Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania. She has
published papers on Hospice care
and is involved in Hsopice evalua-
tion studies.
She her husband, Clair, reside in
Dallas.
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enough money and I didn’t know
anyone around here. It became very
lonely, so I began taking my frus-
trations out on my children. That’s
when I really started beating them
bad. I just didn’t care about them,”
she continued.
“I remember one day my daugh-
ter was standing on the edge of the
steps and my mother said, ‘she’s
gonna fall.’ I said, ‘let her.’ I didn’t
care. I just wanted them out of my
sight, out of my hair and I didn’t
care what happened to them.”
Six months after moving to the
Valley, Jane suffered a nervous
breakdown. Along the road to recov-
ery, she spent six months in a
Council House while her children
were being looked after at a Day
Care Center. But even after her
return, the problems resurfaced.
“The same things were starting to
happen again,” Jane said. “One day
I sent my son to the store and he
came back with the wrong change
or something like that. Anyway I
started to hit him. I mean I really
belted him. He was black and blue
and had bruises on his body.
“Then I did the same thing with
my daughter. I actually flung her
across two rooms and she was only
two years old at the time.”
Jane said she never struck the
children with objects and that they
never suffered any broken bones or
had to be hospitalized as a result of
her actions. But the rage did have
its effects. She described them as
“stunned’” and that they ‘‘didn’t
know what to expect.”
Her husband was aware of her
tirades against the youths but, did
nothing more than tell her to ‘leave
them alone.”
“He would tell me that I was
jealous of the kids,” she said. “And
he was right. He paid a lot of
attention to them. There were times
when he would take them out on a
weekend and I'd be left at home
alone.
“Then he and I started having
problems and I had no one to turn to
at all. The kids were always afraid
of me. They would tell me I was bad
and that they didn’t like me.”
Finally, an incident involving her
daughter made Jane realize that
she did have a child abuse problem.
“My daughter was sitting on the
floor playing with her doll one day
when all of a sudden she started
hitting it and punching it and
screaming at it. I said, ‘what are
you doing?’ And she said, ‘well
that’s what you always do to me.
She was being a bad girl so I beat
her.”
“When she said that I thought,
‘My God what am I doing to my
kids?’ I knew if I kept it up I
wouldn’t have them much longer.”
The child’s rebellion against the
doll was ironic, however, because it
may help explain Jane’s behavior
toward her children. She was an
abused child herself and statistics
show that child abusers are often
abused themselves as children,
although Jane cannot say for sure if
that is the case with her.
“If you ask me now if I was
abused as a child I’d say, yes. But
back then I never really thought
about it,”’ she said.
“When I was growing up, we had
a huge family and we all lived in
one house. Aunts, uncles, all kinds
of relatives and I can remember
having a bolo bat paddle being
broken over me more than once.
“My mother ruled with an iron
fist. Everything had to be in its
proper place. In fact we used to call
her the Army sergeant. I remember
one day she went to slap me in the
face and she caught my eyelid with
her fingernail and she made a big
slash over it. There was blood
gushing out and she felt really bad
about it. But even today when she
comes in to visit I say, ‘oh no the
gestapo’s coming,” and I make sure
everything is in its place.”
Life is back to normal now for
Jane and her family. There has not
been an incident in a little over a
year, although the emotional scars
still remain.
“It still hurts when I look back on
it,” she said. “But now things are
different. My kids aren’t afraid to
come up to me with a problem. If
they fail a test at school for exam-
ple, I'll tell them to try and do
better and then I tell them to tell
their father.
“They don’t have that fear any
more. Take last night for instance. I
wasn’t in a very good mood and my
son kept tickling me in the ribs. I
said, ’You’re gonna cry,’ and he
kept on tickling me. I started laugh-
ing and he kept doing it. But that’s
how things have been. We're doing
a lot more as a family.”
Still, the threat of abuse re-occur-
ence does exist on both the emo-
tional and physical level, only now
there are other outlets of expres-
sion.
“If you feel that rage building up
you can always call a counselor or a
help line that operates 24 hours a -
day,” Jane stated.
Looking back on the ordeal, she is
not proud of what she has done, but
she is proud of her accomplish-
ments with Parents Anonymous and
the fact that she is now helping
others.
“There are people who don’t know
where to turn to with problems like
this. We’re trying to spread the
word that there are self-help centers .
and places like Parents Anonymous.
There. is help out there for people
who want and need it.”
And it’s help than can prevent
another child from being abused.
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