Chattanooga’s Kids on the Block announced community activities to honor National Child Abuse Prevention Month to bring awareness of child abuse to the community during the month of April.
This year Chattanooga’s Kids on the Block is partnering with the Creative Discovery Museum to help empower children. Together they are presenting the second annual Pinwheels for Prevention...It’s Your Turn to Make a Difference, an educational child abuse prevention event to empower children to keep themselves safe and report and abuse whether it’s happening to them or someone they now.
The museum will be free of charge to anyone who enters on Thursday, April 9, from 5:30-8 p.m. The first 500 children will receive free mini pinwheels and backpacks that include activity sheets, crayons, and identification cards.
Participants will also enjoy two puppet performances, by Chattanooga’s Kids on the Block addressing child abuse prevention at 6:15 p.m. and 7:15 p.m. in the auditorium.
Kids on the Block uses child size puppets to communicate with children giving them skills to stay safe and healthy. The personal safety program addresses physical and sexual abuse through the eyes of an eleven and fourteen year old kid.
“Oftentimes children look up to the puppet “kids” as though they are peers and find it easier to open up to the “kids” rather than the adults,” said Sue Chesky, program director.
Stephen Arthurs and Derek Price, both eleven-year-old “kids,” share their story and emphasize to children that it is okay to tell someone if this child abuse happens to you or someone you know and that child abuse is never a kid’s fault and that a kid can never do anything to be abused.
After every program, children are given the opportunity to write the “kids” letters, which are read and evaluated by a member of the CKOB staff. One third grade student writes, “Your program is great! Now I know about child abuse. And, it is never a kid’s fault. EVER!”
As of July 2008, Chattanooga's Kids on the Block has performed over 87 Personal Safety programs to children and adults in the 12 county service area and will continue to serve the community with financial support of individuals, community organizations, and area businesses.
“The programs we offer are very much needed in our community. We continue to seek additional funding to make more focus program topics available such as Drugs & Alcohol, Summer Safety, Coping with Crisis & War just to name a few," said Executive Director Kelly Williams.
Chattanooga's Kids on the Block programs are free of charge to schools in twelve different counties thanks to funding from United Way, TN Department of Children’s Services, Mental Health Association of Middle TN, Chattanooga-Hamilton County Medical Society Alliance, Chattanooga Area Brain Injury Association, TN Donor Services, Build-A-Bear, individual donors and fundraising events.
For more information, call the CKOB office at 757-5259.