The recent high-profile cases of the three Montgomery children drowned allegedly by their father in a Baltimore City hotel and the children removed from a Texas compound are reminders of the challenges to keeping children safe, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman said Tuesday.
“You think about what goes into protecting our children,” Ulman said, standing in front of the county?s Child Advocacy Center on Tuesday in Ellicott City.
Ulman and other county officials toured the center, known as The Listening Place, to highlight National County Government Week this week with the theme “Protecting Our Children.”
The number of children served at the center increases every year.
In 2007, there were 517 cases at the center, compared with 506 in 2006 and 473 in 2005, according to county officials.
“We need to get to a point where those numbers go down,” Ulman said.
Carroll resident Diane Champe recounted the more than two decades of abuse she endured at the hands of her father. For the first 21 years of her life, her father, a lieutenant commander in the Navy, mentally, physically and sexually abused her, she said.
Champe said she spent 23 years in therapy and continues to suffer from the abuse.
Commending the efforts of the county?s advocacy center, Champe said, “The children of Howard County deserve nothing less.”
Since 2000, detectives and social workers have recorded victim statements at the center to help convince prosecutors of the validity of a child?s statement while sparing the child the ordeal of testifying in court.
The center, which opened 16 years ago, provides on-site medical exams and is designed in a way ? with mural-painted walls, toys and child-sized furniture ? to put young victims at ease.
