Savannah Perkins
Community and state leaders support local efforts to step up for children
The shoes have a voice; hear what they have to say
By Savannah Perkins
403 pairs of children’s shoes lined the Cache County Council Chambers as community members streamed inside, ready to learn about prevention efforts to decrease child abuse in Cache County.
Utah Attorney General, Sean Reyes was the keynote speaker at the National Child Abuse Prevention Month event Steppin’ Up For Children on Wednesday at noon.
“For far too many children living in that environment is like living in a storm,” Reyes said. The Family Place is a sanctuary from the storm, he said.
“Our goal, our full mission is to strengthen families and to protect children,” said Esterlee Molyneux, the executive director of The Family Place. “We are all here today because we believe in keeping our children safe.”
The Family Place, a local non-profit organization hosted this event to kick off their month long effort to raise more awareness for child abuse.
“Each of these pairs of shoes represents a substantiated case of child abuse and neglect in our community during 2015,” Molyneux said, pointing to the shoes lining the room. “Each of these pairs of shoes has a story.”
With a new facility under construction in Logan, most conversation focused on continued efforts and goals to increase the organization’s reach and capacity.
Molyneux said the organization served over 8,500 community members in 2015 and explained that the most prevalent form of child abuse in Cache County is child endangerment followed quickly by child sex abuse.
Reyes said in the Attorney General’s Office they specialize in intervention and getting people out of abusive situations.
“That is intervention, it is like investing in ambulances at the bottom of the cliff,” he said. “What Esterlee’s team does is they are the fences at the top of the cliff to try to prevent any abuse from ever beginning to occur.”
Utah Senator Lyle Hillyard echoed the message of support and of team effort repeated throughout the event.
“These shoes should remind us that we have a long way to go,” he said. “It is not just my responsibility as a father to raise my children and grandchildren correctly but it is my obligation as a citizen of this valley to reach out and to help people. Maybe I can stand tall by bending down and helping.”
Molyneux urged the audience to do more, to reach out and lift others up around them. “I personally will not be satisfied until there is not one pair of shoes up here,” she said. “Children deserve a childhood.”