Virtual Pinwheel Garden Raises Awareness for Child Abuse Prevention Month

April is Child Abuse Prevention (CAP) Month, a time to act collectively to raise awareness and empower people across the nation to play a role in helping children, families, and entire communities thrive. Throughout Child Abuse Prevention Month, and in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the city of La Vergne is reinforcing the message that “Everyone can make great childhoods happen—especially you, especially now!”

Child abuse and neglect are a major public health problem with significant effects for individual victims and for society. La Vergne’s mission is to prevent the abuse and neglect of our children here at home in our community and throughout the nation. Our vision is a community in which no child is ever abused or neglected, and believe through awareness with the help from the public and policy-makers, that this idea can be made a reality.

We recognize that every day we each have the opportunity to help create the kind of community we want to live in. We also recognize that when all children don’t have equal opportunity for healthy growth and development, we put our future as a society at risk.

One in 10 children will be the victim of sexual abuse before their 18th birthday. Child sexual abuse takes many forms, and they aren’t just physical. It also includes non-contact acts such as exhibitionism, exposure to pornography, and voyeurism.

Child sexual abuse can occur anywhere. It happens in places like homes, neighborhoods, schools, and youth sports environments, but it also occurs online, such as child pornography or communicating in a sexual manner by phone or internet.

To prevent abuse, we have to break through the stigma and shame and talk about how child sexual abuse happens.

The health and social impacts of child sexual abuse on a survivor last a lifetime and affect us all socially and financially.

During Child Abuse Prevention Month, many organizations plant pinwheel gardens to raise awareness. This year we want to create a virtual Blue Ribbon Campaign. We have a coloring sheet from Prevent Child Abuse America you may print from the La Vergne Police Department facebook page or from the City of La Vergne website. It is our hope the families will have their children color the sheets and put them in their windows. Then take a picture of the colored pinwheel, tag us, and use the hashtag #(please fill this in).

For more information about how you can be part of the prevention of child abuse, visit any or the links on your screen or visit www.lavergnetn.gov to find the links posted there.

To report child abuse call La Vergne Police Department at 615-793-7744.