April is child abuse prevention awareness month, and Jones County Family Connection has put out pinwheels around the community to make people aware of the importance of child abuse prevention.
Joy Carr, coordinator for Jones County Family Connection, said local businesses have put out pinwheels and wore blue on April 12 to help the community become better informed of child abuse prevention awareness month.
“April is child abuse prevention awareness month, and the state of Georgia and nation recognizes this month as such,” she said. “What you will probably see consistently throughout all communities is the pinwheel symbol, which have been adopted as the symbol for child abuse prevention awareness month to remind us how childhood should be. To be carefree and playful just being a child.”
She said they have been putting pinwheels throughout the community to help bring awareness about child abuse prevention awareness. She said Jones County Family Connections has resources to help parents and other adults better connect with the children they are working with daily and how to become a mandated reporter if abuse is suspected. She said that information can be found at jones.gafcp.org/resources/ community-resources/.
“If you are already working in a school or working around children in any capacity, you are already a mandated reporter. You can’t just say it isn’t your business, because it is your business. If you see something, say something. If something doesn’t feel right, report it,” Carr said.
The coordinator said she encourages people to go through the mandated trainer reporting instead of listing off the signs of what to look for with child abuse. She said the training only takes a few minutes, and it helps people to know what they should look out for.
According to jones.gafcp. org, children with a substantiated incident of abuse rate for Georgia is 2 percent while in Jones County it is 2.3 percent, and children with a substantiated incident of neglect in Georgia is a rate of 2.9 percent, with that number being 5.8 percent in Jones County. Child abuse and neglect in Georgia in 2022 had a rate of 4.5, with that rate being a 7.5 in Jones County.
“I think our numbers are higher, because we do have such great teachers and support in Jones County. When they see something, they say something. My desire is not for these numbers to go up, but for people to be a positive role model and for children to be taken care of,” the coordinator said.
Carr said it’s important for the community to know about child abuse prevention awareness month, because it speaks about the health of the community and about the next generation. She said she wants to see children raised in a positive environment in Jones County.
“When people look for abuse or neglect, they think the worst, but that’s not always the case. Abuse can be something simple,” Carr said. “We want to make sure children are in a loving, nurturing environment, because there are different
