Mercy Health Love County - News

Puppet Show Concludes Child Abuse Prevention Month

Posted on Thursday, April 23rd, 2009

For the 16th year, a Child Abuse Prevention Month puppet show will make its way to all Love County Elementary Schools, April 27-29. 

The program was developed by the Love County Task Force on Child Abuse Prevention in 1994. Marietta High School speech and drama students act as the puppeteers.
 
In the performances, the puppets tell about abuse and what they did about it. The purpose is to make it clear to young children that when personal safety or discomfort is involved, the child can say “NO” to adults and tell a trusted adult what is happening to them.
 
The program includes scripts on sexual abuse, physical abuse, and a humorous take on learning the 911 emergency numbers.
 
Narrators are Kay Jones, Sara Roberts, and Stacey Leitkowitz, child-family specialists in the Family Resource Program of the Community Children’s Shelter.
Puppeteers are Selina Barrientos, Brenton Brown, James Cavitt, Ryan Coleman, Kayla Dowdell, Billy Elles, Amanda Evans, Honor Hilton, Justin Kershner, Karli Plunkett, Gus Thompson, Caitlyn Wilson, and Kelsi Winchester.
 
Their teacher is Donna Plunkett.
 
Mercy Health/Love County Hospital and Clinic is furnishing “101 Ways to Praise a Child” bookmarks and “There’s No Excuse for Child Abuse” wrist ribbons to all the children and “Thanks for Your Commit-mint to Child Abuse Prevention” mints for the teachers.
 
The Love County Multidisciplinary Team of law enforcement, child welfare and medical/mental health workers that investigates child abuse and neglect is providing “Good Touch/Bad Touch” coloring books to pre-school-grade 3 students.
 
The Task Force points out that children rely on adults to notice and report child abuse and neglect.
 
 If they have reason to believe a child has been or may be harmed, callers should contact child welfare services at 276-2431 or the Child Abuse Hotline, 1-800-522-3511, or local law enforcement.
 
Reports can be made anonymously. It is helpful if the caller can provide the child’s name, age, sex, address, phone number, directions to the home, parents’ places of employment, description of suspected abuse, current condition of the child, and gender of other family members.