Pinwheels gardens popping up for Child Abuse Awareness Month
(CBS DETROIT) - With April marking Child Abuse Awareness Month, children advocates say the number of cases in Wayne County has increased to pre-pandemic levels.
According to experts, one in six children in Michigan under 17 suffers abuse and neglect.
It happens every day, and it's often preventable.
"Child abuse can happen in all families. It does not discriminate," said Captain Rebecca McKay with the Detroit Police Department.
It's why Detroit police and child advocates came together Thursday to install a pinwheel garden, symbolic of childhood and the innocence that goes with it, to raise awareness of child abuse.
This includes physical injuries, sexual abuse, and different kinds of neglect-like being careless with gun storage.
"A quarter of children as young as three are strong enough to pull a trigger," McKay said.
Reports of child abuse decreased during the pandemic. Kids were less visible--they weren't attending school in person or doing extracurricular activities where they would be surrounded by adults responsible for reporting signs of abuse.
"Our staff is very well trained at correlating what accidents look like and where those injuries should be," said Dr. Bradley Norat, medical director of the child at-risk evaluation team at Children's Hospital of Michigan.
Sometimes it isn't easy getting a child to talk about abuse.
"Very young children may be able to tell us who, but they're not going to be able to tell us when, how many times something happened, what the circumstances were, so we try and make sure we ask children and age-appropriate questions that they're going to understand," Norat said.
According to Kids-TALK Children's Advocacy Center (CAC) director, Melanie Richards, child abuse and neglect cases in Wayne County returned to pre-pandemic levels more quickly than the national average.
"So what we hope is that people in the community are becoming involved. They are looking out for children in our community and thus are reporting so that children who may need and families who may need more support that we can get them the support that they need and hopefully decrease the rates of child abuse and neglect in our county," Richards said.
If you suspect a child is experiencing abuse or neglect, you're asked to report it to Children's Protective Services by calling 855-444-3911.