BRACAC Executive Director shares tips on protecting kids from abuse, neglect during the summer

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (WBKO) - With the school year coming to an end, the Barren River Area Child Advocacy Center is sharing tips on ways for parents to protect their children from child abuse or neglect.

BRACAC Executive Director, Jennifer Bryant said the center typically sees a decrease in reports in the summertime.

“When children go home for the summer, they’re not around teachers and teachers make up about 30% of those who report child abuse,” Bryant said, “We’re one of the first stops, you know, for law enforcement and social services when a child has been reported,” she said.

She added that one of the ways to help protect your children is to know exactly who you are leaving them with.

“We want to be really careful about that,” Bryant said. “Background checks, checking social media, making sure that we know well, who we leave our children with during the summer.”

And if you’re planning on leaving the child with someone at home or at a summer camp, you want to make sure you know exactly the type of people who will be around your child and communicate to them that your family believes in body safety.

“If it’s a summer camp, are they doing background checks? What does that look like? What kind of references are they providing for the caregivers, and then do they have a policy against one on one time with children,” Bryant said. “We want to make sure that they’re always two adults with a child at a summer camp or in any kind of one on one situation, or would be a one-on-one situation with a child.”

By law, every person in the state of Kentucky is a mandated reporter. This means they are required to report child abuse if they know about it.

“If not, you can be prosecuted as well, if you allow child abuse to happen and you know about it,” Bryant said, "

Ultimately, she said, if you see something, say something.

For additional information on how you can protect your child, visit rainn.org.

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