In observance of Child Abuse Month, Kye was asked to speak at a rally with State Representative John Vines, Garland County Circuit Court Judge Vicky Cook and Ouachita Children’s Center executive director Linda Ragsdale.
Addressing a large gathering at the St. Joseph Mercy Cooper-Anthony Child Advocacy Center, Kye said, “It is the duty for each one of us as concious members of humanity to join this Center in the effort to end any and all forms of child abuse.”
Cooper-Anthony Mercy Child Advocacy Center at St. Joseph’s Mercy is an Accredited Member of the National Children’s Alliance. It was founded by St. Joseph’s Mercy in 2003 after it was learned that Garland County was part of one of Arkansas? top three judicial districts in the filing of child maltreatment reports. The center is dedicated to providing comprehensive, coordinated and compassionate services to victims of child abuse.
?Child Abuse Month is April and there’s a lot that goes on in our community that people are not aware of,? said Janice McCutcheon, director of the Cooper-Anthony Mercy Child Advocacy Center, the state’s first hospital-based facility for child abuse and neglect. ?We?ve had 177 true findings of child abuse in Garland County alone. There were almost 8,000 true findings in Arkansas.?
Pinwheels were placed in the front lawn of the Advocacy Center as part of a Child Abuse Awareness Rally held in Hot Springs. The 177 pinwheels represented the number of founded cases of child abuse in the past year.? Kye placed the first pinwheel in the ground after the ceremony.
http://www.mercy.net/newsroom/2012-04-17/pinwheels-spin-to-remember-victims
