To learn more about healthy development & activities for children click on these links.
	JiggaJump
	The Importance of Sports, Recreation and the Arts
	Turn Off the T.V. and Tune into Your Children
	The Growing Brain
	Family Fun
	Parent Child Learning Activities

We believe that all children have the right to a healthy start in life. Our goal is to promote the healthy development of children and support families. Children need to be valued within a nurturing family and a supportive community. But we know that children who are abused face life-long damage including physical and mental disabilities, poor self-image, emotional scars and sometimes even death.

A community wide effort is needed in order to protect children from abuse and support families who are at risk.

The Prevention Awareness and Child Abuse Education Program seeks to educate and mobilize community members in order to decrease the incidence of child abuse and provide a supportive community environment for all children. Through media and public education, community workshop presentations and joint projects with other service providers we seek to increase the community capacity to respond to abuse. This response needs to be multi-faceted and include:

	education to increase the understanding in the community of the signs and symptoms of abuse and the need to report suspected abuse
	education which gives children the skills to protect themselves from abuse and encourages children who have been abused to report that abuse
	early intervention and treatment for children who have been exposed to violence
	programs that address the underlying problems of violence and seek to change the attitudes and beliefs that foster violence as a solution
	programs that promote parents spending more time with their children and provide parents with information on issues pertaining to healthy child development
We also work together with members of the community to ensure that all children have access to activities that encourage healthy development such as sports, recreation and the arts.

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Child Abuse prevention education programs are delivered in day cares and schools throughout Huron County. They include:

Safe Child Program
The Safe Child Program is a comprehensive safety training program which utilizes a uniquely effective combination of videotape, classroom role-playing and parental participation to enable children to prevent sexual, emotional and physical abuse; and to prevent abuse and abduction by strangers. The focus of the Safe Child Program is to teach children how to protect themselves from potential abuse without creating fear or anxiety.

The basic principles of the program are developed from the point of view that children can make judgments, they can speak up for themselves and they can take responsibility for their own well-being. The skills children need to protect themselves develop gradually between the ages of two to six. This has been shown to be the optimum age to begin abuse training.

Children are taught safety skills that empower them to act upon their instinctual feelings. Through repetition, role plays and booster sessions children gain the knowledge and skills they need.

The Parent Guide to Second Step – Parenting Strategies for a Safer Tomorrow has been offered to our communities for the past year. Interested groups are encouraged to call us for details.

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There are many simple but effective strategies that parents can use to help protect their children. These include:

	Don’t single out your child with personalized clothes. If a potential abuser calls your child by his/her own name, they are more likely to go with them.
	Remember there is safety in numbers. Do not let your child play alone in a public place.
	Preschoolers, six and under are too young to be out on their own.
	Teach your children never to take shortcuts.
	Children should be taught to trust their instincts. If they are scared or suspicious, teach them to act on their instincts.
	Teach children to say "NO", run away and get someone to help.
	Pick a secret code word with your child, ie. grapes. Teach children never to go off with anyone unless the person knows the secret code word.
	Make sure all children know their address and telephone number including the area code.
	Self-defense courses are not a good defense against guns, knives etc. Run, yell, finding someone to help is a better defense.
	Children should be taught to go to someone in a uniform if they are lost or to a cash register in a store.
	Check your babysitter’s references thoroughly.
	In 85% of sexual abuse the perpetrator is someone the child knows and with whom the child may already have a trusting relationship.  It is important to provide children with skills to protect them from abuse or abduction by strangers. However since most children are abused by someone they know they need to learn about appropriate boundaries and be able to communicate to trusted adults if someone pushes the limits of those boundaries.
	Teach your children the proper names for their sexual body parts. Children need the words that can help them to speak up about what has happened to them without too much embarrassment.
	Children need to be taught they have the right to say NO.
	Teach your children to speak up about touch they do not like. Teach them not to keep secrets. Sexual abuse cannot continue to occur in the absence of secrecy. Children should know that TOUCHING IS NEVER A SECRET.
	Do not force a child to give physical affection. The message is that forced physical affection is okay.
	Teach your child to be assertive, that they should keep telling adults until someone believes them and gets them the help to make the abuse stop.
	If a child tells you about sexual abuse believe the child.
	Say "I believe you" or "I’m sorry this happened to you". Listen openly and calmly. Reassure the child, say "I'm glad you told me", "you did the right thing" and/or "it is not your fault". Write down the facts in the child’s words. Immediately make a report to the child abuse authorities.
	In Huron County call the Children’s Aid Society at: 1 - 800 - 265 - 5198 or 519 - 524 - 7356