Choose Your Partner Carefully
May 21, 2010Athens County Children Services is hosting a kick-off event May 26, 2010 to launch the Choose Your Partner Carefully campaign. The event serves as the initial introduction of the campaign to the Athens County community.
“The goal of the campaign is to make parents stop and think for a minute about how their choice of a boyfriend or girlfriend can affect their children,” said Sherri Oliver, public relations and community events coordinator. “We want to share the warning signs that parents should look for in their partners in order to prevent child abuse.“ In 2009, there were 386 abuse and neglect reports in Athens County. Of these reports, 73 named the parent’s partner as the perpetrator of abuse.
The purpose of the event is to educate and raise awareness about the risks of child abuse when a parent’s boyfriend or girlfriend is entrusted with their child’s care. Community leaders, educators, social workers, and law enforcement officials throughout the county will attend a training session at the kick-off event where they will be educated about this form of abuse. They will also learn how to incorporate the Choose Your Partner Carefully campaign into their respective organization’s programs. This will be achieved by providing each attendee with tools to teach them how to initiate conversation with their clients about this specific type of child abuse, to recognize the signs of this type of abuse and how to report it, and to be informed about local child-care options. The ultimate goal of the training session is to establish informed ambassadors within the community who will advocate for the Choose Your Partner Carefully campaign.
The Choose Your Partner Carefully campaign is a state-wide initiative to educate and increase awareness among single parents (specifically mothers) about the risk their child faces when a non-related partner is entrusted with the child’s care. This campaign began in Lorain County, and has since been adopted by other social-work agencies in the State of Ohio.
