Working together to end child abuse

We want to meet families where they're at. It is very hard. We meet families when the most horrific thing has happened and to reconcile and understand that either their child was abused or that their child could have done something that was not okay. I am a bilingual clinician. I speak Spanish and there is a lot of trauma in the community. When it comes to child sexual abuse, there's not a lot of bilingual clinicians, and the wait list for services is huge. We have an intervention that we implement at our CAC, and we've been doing it for a number of years. And beginnings are challenging, but we're doing it. And, I know that there are many children and many parents that feel supported because of the training that we have received. When we think of child sexual abuse, it's overwhelming. But to know that I am impacting one child and one family at a time, it's huge. So being able to instill hope in a child or a caregiver or a mom or a dad, and to help them see their child, kind of smile again and be a child again after something horrific happened to them, it's huge. So I want to make sure that I'm part of it and I am so honored that I can lead a team that can do that. In the state of Massachusetts, MAGA is bringing training for mental health professionals to implement an intervention in problematic sexual behaviors, cognitive behavioral therapy, or PSBCBT. And our center has been doing, this training for quite some time. And I am so glad that there are other CACs and other mental health places that are doing this kind of training, because the reality is that there's a lot of children that need help and we need other colleagues to get trained. And MACA is giving us that opportunity and has given, other professionals in the state to receive that training. I think as a state, we need to make sure that we have a comprehensive approach when it comes to handling cases of problematic sexual behaviors. I would say that Massachusetts Children Alliance needs support because the children in our community deserve that support. And we do this for the children. And we want to make sure that we help little ones and not so little, to have healthy lives and healthy development. And we want them to know that there is help out there and that we're ready to help them and serve them. So when we support MACA, we're also supporting the children in our communities.