Hi, and thanks for having me here today.
I'm Sheldon Kennedy with the Child Advocacy Centre. At the centre in Alberta we do all the sexual assault investigations in the city of Calgary and surrounding area. We've pulled together RCMP, the Calgary Police child abuse sex crimes unit, Alberta Health with four pediatricians and 15 psychiatrists, 35 child and family service workers, and we all work as one under one roof to investigate these crimes and to treat our young people to turn their lives around early.
One of the things I've learned is that the reality is if I look at my offender and many more of the victims that I've talked to as offenders, these individuals operate in our society because of society's ignorance and indifference, period. That's how they get away and that's how they operate within our country and within our communities. I think our best defence is to create awareness and confidence within the community of who these individuals are because one of the myths out there in society is that the people who hurt kids jump out from behind buildings and have masks on and so forth. In reality that's not the case. In our data that we've created at the CAC here in Calgary, we've been able to open the files of all the existing partners: health, child and family, police and crown, and so we've been able to paint the picture of the invisible damage of this crime.
I think that is one thing that our courts and systems don't really grasp. We talk about mental health, depression and so forth, but the reality is: what's the root cause? It's all about trauma-informed care. Can you believe in this country that our family physicians, our nurses, the majority of police officers, unless they specialize in this crime, don't have the training to deal with child abuse? At the Child Advocacy Centre, in 20 months, we've done 2,500 investigations in Calgary alone; 60% to 80% of those are sexual assaults; 93% of these children know their abuser; 47% of abusers are parents or caregivers; and 32% have experienced abuse in the past. The majority of the children are four to seven years old, so to think that this is only happening to older children is ridiculous.
I'd like to focus on some of the impacts. What are we really dealing with when children are abused? What's happening? What's the damage?
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