non-profit

April is the month for alot of celebrations. Spring is here, the Easter Bunny is coming and school is rapidly coming to a close. One other celebration is the Prevention of Child Abuse. Wait a minute, a celebration you ask? This is the time of year when we as child welfare workers celebrate the opportunity to tell people about child abuse and how to prevent it. Typically we see an influx of children enter our system at this time of year and feel compeled to alleviate this problem by warning parents. So I'd like to explain the types of abuse we typically see. Before I do that let me tell you that Clay county is ranked as one of the counties at most risk for Child Abuse with 31 of every 1000 children abused. This is a rate much higher than most other counties.

HCA's Tricare Department recently held a month long fundraiser in which they raised over $3400.00 for Clay & Baker KidsNet, Inc. (CBKN). HCA accomplished this worthy task by providing other employees an opportunity to particpate in Jeans Days, snack cart, iron chef competition, spaghetti dinner, cake walk, hot dog sales and a cake walk.

CBKN is the lead child welfare agency for Clay & Baker counties providing foster care, adoption, case management and emergency shelter services for children in state care. The proceeds raised will benefit children who have been removed from their homes due to abuse and/or neglect by providing extras that are unallowable through the DCF contract. Some expenses that are deemed unallowable would be, avenues for children to explore special interest, such as baseball or cheerleading; ability for high schoolers to participate in specialty school activities, items to help in the maintenance of speicalized programs, celebrations and other things that may help a child achieve a sense of normalcy.