Zonta Club of Coos Bay helps Kids’ Hope Center create Safer, Smarter Schools, Dec. 20

The Zonta Club of the Coos Bay Area is helping the Kids’ HOPE Center in its effort to get local schools the curriculum they need to teach about childhood sexual abuse.  At the annual Zonta awards luncheon, on December 16, Kids’ HOPE Center received $2,000 to help fund this worthy project. JoAnne Shorb, Program Director of the Kids’ HOPE Center, said the Zonta Club of the Coos Bay Area once again is stepping-up to help the youth of the local area. “We are so grateful for their support and partnership,” Shorb said. “Because of these dollars, we’re able to further our own prevention and education mission by providing a local school district with the dollars they need to purchase the educational curriculum that puts them in compliance with Erin’s Law.”  Bay Area Hospital’s Kids’ HOPE Center is the Child Abuse Assessment & Intervention Center (CAIC) for Coos County. As a predominantly child serving organization, the center’s mission and vision encompasses the endeavor of reducing child abuse through community awareness, intervention, and through the provision of supports for healing and victim justice. Erin’s law requires schools to provide child sexual abuse prevention instruction for all grades, kindergarten through twelfth.  Additionally, it requires a professional training component, specifically addressing administrators, teachers, and other school personnel regarding communicating child sexual abuse prevention techniques to students, the effects of child sexual abuse on children, and how to handle child disclosures and the accompanying mandatory reporting components.  Shorb notes that the numbers of referrals the Kids’ HOPE Center receives has gone up year after year. Given the knowledge they’ve acquired over the years, and the repeat victims that are assessed and treated time and time again, she said, it is apparent something more needs to be done.  “By giving our school-aged kids the language, skills, and resources they need to make healthy decisions, know how to respond if any manner of contact makes them feel comfortable, and to identify trusted persons they can talk to if they’re ever hurt, we’re investing in the childhood they so desperately need preserved,” Shorb said.  “Over time, and as more schools begin implementing the Erin’s Law curriculum, the end result will be safer, smarter schools for our youngest, most vulnerable county residents.”