Good neighbours act to save thousands of children as NSPCC launches £50m appeal to grow helplines

Neighbours are acting to save thousands of children living in appalling and dangerous conditions, the NSPCC reveals

Last year, concerned members of the public contacted the charity’s Helpline every five minutes on average, with nearly 10,000 calls being so serious they needed urgent attention. One in three of these came from people living near the abused child and their action helped at least 7000 children.

However, the full scale of child abuse in communities is even higher. At least one in six calls from neighbours and others cannot be answered by overstretched Helpline counsellors, leaving many children at risk of serious harm.

Last year the Helpline received 95,000 calls but 15,000 went unanswered. Most people wait at least a month before calling to help a child, outnumbering those ringing on the same day by seven to one.

To that end, the NSPCC has announced a major expansion of its helplines to enable the charity to recruit and train more counsellors and encourage more people to take action sooner.

A £50m ‘Child’s Voice Appeal’ (childsvoiceappeal.org.uk) is being launched to help grow the service and ensure all these cries for help are covered. This is in addition to £30m already donated by the UK government, which recognises the importance of expanding the NSPCC’s helplines.

Recent calls included one about a nine-year-old boy who had the barrel of a gun placed in his mouth. In another a neighbour described a young girl being threatened with an axe by her father and a third involved a homeless twelve-year-old who was terrified of going to sleep in case he woke up to find his alcoholic mum dead.

In other calls neighbours have described seeing a young mother dangling her two-year-old child by the wrist from a second floor window, parents constantly screaming and swearing at their youngsters and many living in households where drugs are openly used. One shocked woman told how she went into a house where the floors were covered with rubbish and dog mess and the milk in a baby’s bottle had turned green because it was so old.

John Cameron, Head of the NSPCC Helpline, said, “Every day we deal with tragic stories of children who are living in the most heart-rending and often dangerous conditions. Many of them are so young they are helpless so their only hope is for someone to see how dreadful their lives are and take action to save them. When they do that we have to be sure we can take their calls.

“Not all children brought to our attention are at serious risk of harm, but many are in very distressing situations. We were asked to help one five-year-old girl who was so hungry she started eating toilet paper to block out the hunger pangs.”

One caller who saw three young children being violently beaten by their parents told a Helpline counsellor, “Please help them. I just want them to have a better future.”

John Cameron added, “It is outrageous that our country’s children continue to suffer such cruelty in 2008. Thankfully, there are many responsible neighbours who are looking out for these children. But we want more to join them and to call as soon as they suspect something is wrong. You might think it’s a difficult thing to make a call like that but in the vast majority of cases the people who rang because they believed the matter was urgent were right.

“It only takes a few seconds to dial the 0808 800 5000 number and that could save a child’s life. Now we have to raise the money to make sure we play our part.”

Dame Mary Marsh, director and chief executive of the NSPCC said, “Our Full Stop Campaign has spurred millions of people to act in recent years. The Child’s Voice Appeal is a major step forward against child cruelty and will allow us to help many more children. Every £10 donated helps us answer another call which could save a child’s life.

“The UK government is committed to helping us develop the NSPCC Helpline and ChildLine. We are confident the public will now play its part in supporting the appeal – working together towards our ultimate aim of ending child cruelty.”

www.childsvoiceappeal.org.uk

D&D video game couple neglects children

A 22-month-old boy and 11-month-old girl were found severely malnourished and near death in the home of a Nevada couple who were so engrossed in a Dungeons and Dragons video game that they neglected to feed and care for them.

Doctors treated the boy for starvation and a genital infection. He lacked muscle development, causing him difficulty walking.

Hospital staff had to shave the girl’s head because her hair had been matted with cat urine. The 10-pound girl also had a mouth infection, dry skin and severe dehydration.

The prosecutor says the couple had food, but just chose not to give it to their kids.

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US CyberTipLine tops 500,000 suspected child exploitation/pornography reports

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) has announced that it’s received its half-a-millionth report of suspected child pornography or child exploitation crime.

The half-million mark comes nine years after the CyberTipline was mandated by the U.S. Congress to serve as the nation’s “9-1-1″ for reporting incidents of child sexual exploitation. NCMEC’s Exploited Child Division (ECD) personnel analyze and develop the leads, which are then referred to law enforcement for investigation and prosecution. Since its creation, the number of reports to the CyberTipline has shown significant increases in many of the reporting categories.

“Here’s what we know, an estimated 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 10 boys will be sexually victimized in someway before they reach the age of 18,” said NCMEC President and CEO Ernie Allen. “The constant growth in reports to the CyberTipline is staggering. Even more disturbing is that these figures don’t reflect the true number of children being victimized because sex crimes involving minors are grossly underreported.”

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Sticks and stones: Verbal abuse of children can lead to PTSD

Psychiatrists at Harvard University have challenged the old playground rhyme.

“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” might have served some purpose at some time in the face of a tirade of name-calling, but actually a constant barrage of verbal attacks-yelling, shouting, swearing, insults, demeaning, ridiculing, and casting unfair blame-can in fact be as traumatic for a child as experiencing or witnessing some types of physical or sexual abuse.

Constant and severe verbal abuse can lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

The Harvard news site reports:

Many studies tie physical and sexual abuse to lasting effects on the brain and behavior, but emotional mistreatment has not received the same focus. “Exposure to verbal aggression has received little attention as a specific form of abuse,” notes Martin Teicher, associate professor of psychiatry at McLean Hospital, a Harvard-affiliated psychiatric facility. “This despite the fact that one national study found that 63 percent of American parents reported one or more instances of verbal aggression, such as swearing at and insulting their child.”

Other researchers have associated childhood verbal abuse with a significantly higher risk of developing unstable, angry personalities, narcissistic behavior, obsessive-compulsive disorders, and paranoia. “Verbal abuse may also have more lasting consequences than other forms of abuse, because it’s often more continuous,” says Teicher. “And in combination with physical abuse and neglect [it] may produce the most dire outcome. However, child protective service agencies, doctors, and lawyers are most concerned about the impact and prevention of physical or sexual abuse.”

The article raises some interesting points, and concludes that the occasional harsh or angry word won’t traumatise a child for life, but frequent verbal bashing “could be as bad as sticks and stones that break their bones.”
Study or no study, I know many people who have rightfully dismissed this unhelpful rhyme.

I personally don’t know where it came from, or why it was used-frequently, from memory-in the playground.

Verbal abuse leaves no visible bruises, cuts, or scars, but the emotional trauma it can cause, both at the time, and years afterwards, can be immense.