A somber group gathered recently at Riverview Park in Sebastian amid a field of 82 flags waving in the wind to honor the tragic loss of life that each of those flags represents – one for each Florida child whose life was lost in 2020 to child abuse at the hands of a parent or family member.
The Exchange Clubs of Indian River, Sebastian, Vero Beach and the Treasure Coast sponsored the Children’s Memory Field in recognition of April as National Child Abuse Prevention Month.
“As we gather here at this solemn place, please help us to understand how people can do the things they do to their children. Help us to develop better programs and be able to reach further into our communities to help stop this,” said Judy Landgrave past president of the Exchange Club of Vero Beach, during her invocation.
Each flag carried the name and age of a child whose life was cut tragically short: Jaxson, age 3 months; Mercalli, age 2 years; Madilyn, 10 months, and on it goes.
“Every day should be about preventing child abuse, but we honor them during this month, and we’re able to recognize it and bring awareness to the situation,” said Sandy Munoz, Psy.D., Children’s Healing Institute CEO.
The Children’s Healing Institute offers a six-month intensive Parent Aide program that provides weekly, in-home support to give parents the skills and knowledge needed to nurture and care for their children. Families are referred to CHI by the Florida Department of Children and Families or by self-referral.
“Each year, so many children die from abuse. In Florida, when I first started, we had about 250 kids that would die as a result of child abuse and neglect. This past year we are under 100, which is amazing, but we need to get that down to zero. We shouldn’t have any flags standing,” said Munoz.
“This should be a time of celebration of all the wonderful work that we do with families and not having to recognize all the children that we lost. Sadly, until that day happens, there will be a child abuse prevention agency like ours trying to work with those families.”
During home visits, parents are taught to improve their parenting and problem-solving skills, develop social support systems, and safeguard child safety. Non-violent parenting practices are developed, community connections are built to enable access to the services needed to meet their children’s needs, and modifications are made to the entire family unit.
“You cannot just mentor a child and send the child back to their environment and expect a change. You have to change the environment in which the child is developing. We can only do that by working with the parents,” said Munoz, noting that their ultimate objective is ending the cycle of child abuse.
“That is our goal. We want to create that generational change by building that trusting relationship, creating effective household discipline in the home, modeling in the home, and really making an impact with those kids,” added Munoz.
Area Exchange Clubs have continued the Children’s Memory Field originally launched by the now-defunct CASTLE (Child Abuse Services Training and Life Enrichment).
Florida District Exchange president-elect Joseph Walsh noted that due to COVID, funding for Child Abuse Prevention programs had been stripped out of the state budget.
“We got no funding from them last year and probably will not this year,” said Walsh, adding that Exchange Club fundraisers help support those local nonprofits that focus on assisting families and child abuse prevention.
The flags spent the first half of the month at Riverview Park in Sebastian and will remain at St. Helen’s Catholic Church in Vero Beach from April 18-30.
Photos by Brenda Ahearn
