Children & Youth Offices

Protecting Our Children, Protecting Our Future

Pennsylvania’s future rests in the hands of its most vulnerable citizens – our children. Yet each day in communities across Pennsylvania, children are suffering a nightmare of abuse and neglect. Some will die at the hands of their abusers, while others will grow up with physical and emotional scars to contend with as adults.

These are children we know personally and professionally. They are our neighbors, our students, and our kids’ teammates. But they are helpless unless we open our eyes to the signs of abuse and accept our individual responsibility to do something about it.

Did You Know?

• Child abusers are found among all socio-economic, religious and ethnic groups and most often are ordinary people trapped in a stressful life situation they can’t cope with.
• Caregivers and birth parents of a child younger than one year are the most common perpetrators of fatal abuse.
• Every 10 seconds in America a child is abused.
• More than three children in the United States die each day as a result of parental abuse.
• Child molestation is most often perpetrated by relatives and acquaintances rather than strangers.
• Videos and booklets explaining the differences between good and bad touches are available from most public libraries and pediatricians.
• Children who are abused are at a higher risk of crime, substance abuse, school drop-out, teen pregnancy and a host of other social ills.
• Homicide is the leading cause of injury deaths among infants in the US.
• Abused children are 25 times more likely to repeat a grade.
• Eighty-five percent of long-term prisoners have abused children.