A program that has taught sexual abuse prevention education to about 4,000 children yearly in grades kindergarten through six will continue thanks to a
$20,000 grant it will receive from the ORTHOPEDIC CENTER OF ILLINOIS FOUNDATION’s sixth annual OCIF Open: Chip in Fore Charity! The SANGAMON COUNTY CHILD ADVOCACY CENTER will be the recipient of funds raised through the golf outing that will be held Oct. 5 at Panther Creek Country Club. The grant will go solely toward the center’s sexual abuse prevention education program. The center coordinates the investigation, prosecution and treatment of child sexual abuse cases. “This grant from the Orthopedic Center is going to allow us to continue a program that was really on the chopping block with the budget cuts because it’s not our primary mission,” said JOE GOULET, the center’s executive director. “This is as important as any, if not more so, because … it allows us to go out and actually seek out children who have not reported and basically rescue them from the lives that they are living &mdash being sexually abused by someone that they know … “Out of the 4,000 kids we reach, we probably get between 12 and 20 disclosures (of abuse) a year.” The advocacy center’s nonprofit arm, THE FRIENDS OF THE SANGAMON COUNTY CHILD ADVOCACY CENTER, applied for the grant. “They’ll turn over all the money to the Child Advocacy Center,” Goulet said.
The money will be used to pay for a contractual educator who currently works for the center.