Woman donates $535K to child abuse support group
FORT WAYNE, Ind. — A former Indiana woman who overcame childhood abuse and neglect has donated nearly $535,000 to a Fort Wayne advocacy group to fund a program that will teach children to adapt and recover from the trauma of abuse.
Joan Sherman’s donation is the largest private donation ever given to Stop Child Abuse and Neglect, or SCAN. Sherman, a former volunteer with the group, tells the Journal-Gazette (http://bit.ly/qC2LpC ) that she and her three younger sisters endured a “horrible” childhood growing up in Michigan.
“We had plenty of food and a nice house, never suffered from poverty. But back in those days, in the late 1960s and the 1970s, especially in small-town America, I don’t think we really talked about child abuse,” she said.
Sherman left home at age 18 and began a longtime career in banking. The former Fort Wayne resident now resides in the New York City area. She became involved with the Fort Wayne group after attending a fundraiser with friends, and served on its board of directors from 2003 to 2006.
SCAN’s executive director, Rachel Tobin-Smith, said Sherman’s gift will finance a new program that will teach abused children resiliency skills such as self-control to help them adapt and recover from trauma.
“The opportunity to teach our child victims the protective factors that will build their resiliency is a vast window of opportunity,” Tobin-Smith said.
She and Sherman hope to leverage more money from the community to help underwrite the cost of supervised visits with children who have suffered abuse not reimbursed by the state.
The Devereux Center for Resilient Children, a nonprofit leader in behavioral health, has developed resiliency assessment and behavioral screening tools that are used with families in SCAN’s Family Restoration Division.
The Joan Sherman Program for Resilient Children will use Devereux screening tools and provide resources and staff training to help traumatized children.
“It is very exciting to realize that this could have major, lasting effects on the arena of child abuse prevention and intervention services,” Tobin-Smith said.
The involved families have already crossed the line of abuse and neglect and are referred by the Allen County court system and the Department of Child Services.
Last year, SCAN helped 27,143 children and adults through a spectrum of prevention and family restoration services.
About 60 percent of families completing that program were able to improve parenting skills and the home environment to a level that allowed their children to return home.
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Information from: The Journal Gazette, http://www.journalgazette.net