Orange County : COMMENTARY ON CHILD ABUSE : Prevention Is Key to Breaking Cycle of Mistreating the Young : Change will come when we all take responsibility and support grass-roots efforts to improve the lives of children.

We are not living in gentle times. Too many of our families are riddled with violence, poverty, and substance and child abuse. With sickening persistence, reports of child abuse and neglect continue to pour in. According to the National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse, about 3 million cases of child abuse were reported in 1993.

In Orange County alone, 35,721 cases of in-home abuse were reported to the Child Abuse Registry last year. Nine children were abused to the point of death. These were reported incidents of abuse. Who can estimate what goes unreported?

Abuse falls most cruelly on our youngest children, and 9% of victims of fatal physical abuse are under age 5. Scores more bear permanent physical and emotional scarring. Elizabeth Mehren, reporting (April 12) on the “Quiet Crisis,” a recent Carnegie Corp. report regarding the status of children in America, notes that one in three victims of physical abuse is a baby and that infants are the fastest-growing category of children entering foster care.

In addition, experts in the study of sexual abuse believe that as many as one in three American females and one in six males are sexually abused in their childhood. Taken together these statistics give shape to a social problem of staggering economic proportions in terms of the nation’s programs for education, health, welfare and safety.

The evidence is there. It is overwhelming. But for those raised in families untouched by violence, it is difficult to believe.

And it is my great fear that we, as a society, have heard these numbers so many times that we are becoming numb to the human tragedy they represent.

What is going on? What is behind the numbers? Why the sudden media spotlight on child abuse?

Certainly the celebrity confessions of Oprah Winfrey and Roseanne Arnold have focused on the subject, but the problem has plagued humankind through the ages. In contemporary civilized societies, however, harming one’s children physically, sexually or mentally is morally reprehensible as well as illegal.

Most parents who mistreat their children do not do so maliciously with an intent to damage them. These individuals are following definable and predictable patterns of child-parent interactions which they learned during their earliest, most impressionable periods of life. A history of abuse, combined with a sense of isolation, frustration, unresolved anger, low self-esteem and a lack of resources, often results in abusive behavior.

This does not mean that an adult cannot be held accountable for the acts he or she perpetrates. However, understanding the origin of such behavior does allow us to work toward reversing the trend and break the cycle of abuse.

Recently, a Child Abuse Prevention Council of Orange County report stated that “increasing attention must be placed on child abuse prevention so we can stop children from ever being victimized.”

The report also outlined the financial impact child abuse had on the county, where it is estimated that $55 million in federal, state and county tax dollars was spent just on out-of-home placement of children.

Shelley Westmore, chair of the nonprofit council, stated that prevention programs can cost as little as $2,500 per family each year, as compared to out-of-home placement, which can cost up to 20 times that amount. “Prevention,” she said, “provides invaluable short- and long-term benefits to families and our communities.”

Prevention is the key to breaking the vicious cycle of abuse. But that change is not going to come through government programs.

Change will come when we all take responsibility for the problem and support grass-roots movements committed to improving the lives of children.

The Exchange Club Child Abuse Prevention Center of Orange County is just such an organization. The center is designed to impact the generational cycle of abuse by recruiting, training and matching volunteers with families who are struggling with abusive tendencies.

Founded in 1984, the unique program has goals of providing support to end the isolation that often accompanies parenthood, of providing resources to link the family with other community services and of modeling healthy, nurturing parenting through weekly visits. The results are remarkable. In a significant number of cases the chain of abuse is broken and families live together in greater harmony.

Last year, CAPC volunteer parent aides spent more than 9,000 hours working with at-risk families. In human terms, that means 447 children stayed out of foster and custodial care facilities and their parents out of the judicial system; the effort save taxpayers $2 million.

The efforts of groups such as the Exchange Club Child Abuse Prevention Center depend on volunteers; men and women who will educate the public, raise funds, and who are willing to face the challenge of child abuse head-on, person to person.

It is not enough to simply feel outrage when reading the statistics or compassion when reading the heart-tugging story of a child beaten to death.

To end the cycle of abuse, we, as individuals within our own communities, must be willing to get involved. The simple truth remains: All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing.