Social workers aim to help abuse victims finish school
A suburban elementary school student told her bus driver she had been physically abused.
The student's school called the wrong student down to the office and interrogated her, trying to get her to admit the abuse.
When the student persisted in denying the abuse, school administrators forced her to lift up her shirt and prove she didn't have bruises.
The student - the one who hadn't reported the physical abuse - had herself been a victim of sexual abuse.
Jan Faulhaber, a social worker at Mutual Ground in Aurora, told the shocking story as an example of how many schools go wrong - in some cases, terribly wrong - when they try to help students who have suffered abuse.
Faulhaber's was just one of many horror stories told by suburban social workers Wednesday at a public hearing on sexual and domestic abuse and public school students.
The hearing at South Elgin High School was part of a series of meetings throughout the state designed to find out what's preventing victims of abuse from finishing high school - and what's helping them.
After the hearings are complete, a state task force will recommend new legislation and a plan to help abuse victims finish school.
Lark Syrris, a therapist with the Family Service Association in Elgin, told the task force about a girl in her care who suffered physical abuse from both her mother and her mother's boyfriend.
To escape the abuse, the girl repeatedly tried to run away.
Syrris told the girl's story to highlight the difficulty of helping students who are runaways, homeless or have an unstable home.
"If we can't manage to protect this kid, she will be killed," Syrris said. "We can't reunite her with her family."
But there were also success stories.
Michaella Furman of the Shriver Center in Chicago told the task force about a 17-year-old girl who had been sexually abused as a young child and again as a teenager.
Initially, the girl faced intimidation at school from the boys who had abused her and their friends. Even after she was given escorts to class, she still felt unsafe.
Eventually, the school allowed her to learn at home, and she plans to graduate a semester early.
The social workers pressed state leaders for more funding, more education and especially protocols for schools to follow when responding to physical and sexual violence.
"Our work with young victims would benefit from a constant policy - to avoid the situation you just heard about," said Kathy Kempke of the YWCA in Glen Ellyn.