EDITORIAL Enough Abuse Campaign starts important dialogue

More than 18,000 cases of child sexual abuse are reported in Maine each year, according to York Middle School Resource Officer Jamie Rooney. The Maine Network of Children’s Advocacy Centers reports that approximately 85 percent of minors who are sexually abused never tell, or delay telling, about the abuse.

Any incident of child sexual abuse is one too many. It’s a story no child should ever have to tell.

Three groundbreaking York women, each from different backgrounds and in very different professions, are joining in their painful memories of child sexual abuse to raise awareness and to prevent what happened to them from happening to others. For Kara DioGuardi, a Grammy-nominated music producer and songwriter who was once a judge on American Idol, it was child on child abuse, the son of her mother’s best friend. For York police officer Jamie Rooney, it was “Uncle Bobby” who babysat and then again when she was 12, it was the father of a friend. For Jeanine Ward, a York Hospital emergency room doctor, it was the man who lived across the street from her Quincy, Mass. home who sexually abused her when she was just 5 years old.

It wasn’t until Ward was an adult, and working as an emergency room doctor, that the memories of abuse came flooding back. She buried the memories in her work. While the man still lives across the street from her childhood home in Massachusetts, the statute of limitations for Ward to bring charges forward has long since run out. She learned of a childhood friend who was abused by him too, she said. That woman turned to heroin and alcohol before finding her way out and is now working toward becoming a counselor. Once she remembered what happened, Ward said she told everyone in that neighborhood to prevent similar abuse. “I couldn’t live with that burden,” she said of the fear that another child could have been abused.

Rooney shared her abuse in her book, “Black to Blue,” and said young girls have reached out and thanked her for sharing her story. “They knew I was the real deal,” Rooney said. “Since then, I’ve heard several reports of things that have happened in the past — to both kids and adults.”

DioGuardi is now involved at both the state and national level in strengthening child sexual abuse measures and was connected with Ward and Rooney through her support of the Enough Abuse Campaign.

The women are now partnering to bring the campaign — which aims to raise awareness of child sexual abuse through education, community awareness and legislative outreach — to York. Currently ongoing in a half dozen states, the community-based campaign works to build local partnerships of citizens and professionals; provides comprehensive training for vetted volunteers who then provide free education to parents, children and school personnel; works to help schools strengthen existing governmental and school policies; and educates people about legislative action that they can work to support. Organizers said the campaign isn’t trying to compete with existing programs, but rather complement them.

An organizing meeting, sponsored by York Hospital and the York Police Department, will be held at 1 p.m. on Friday, April 28 at York Library. The meeting is open to the public and various leaders in York County including town and school officials, police officers, and medical professionals from area communities, have been invited to attend. Jetta Bernier, the director of MassKids, which created the Enough Abuse Campaign, will be there to explain the program.

This is a first step to begin the dialogue, with a focus in York and the opportunity to incorporate in other York County communities in the future. It’s an important dialogue to have, one that could enhance child sexual abuse education in our communities, better keep our children safe, and prevent such abuse from ever occurring.