Good morning, good morning, good morning. Welcome, welcome, welcome.
It is time now for our community connection right here on Okay one one you
trust just like a ray of sunshine. We have real hope in here today.
How are we doing, Miss Jocelin and then also miss Rada, We
doing good? Yes, thank you great, thank you. Well. I
understand that you guys have a little scoop for us today. We do have
all let's on it. Yeah, So what it is is, so we're
a Bray's Child Abuse Prevention Month and we're just trying to end that month on
a sweet note. So we're gonna do a here's the scoop event. So
here's a scoop you can help prevent child abuse. It'll be at Jared's Frozen
Custard and Muscleman Abstract husband very generous and they're helping us sponsor one free kitty
Sunday per child under eighteen. So if you'll come out and see us,
we'll be there Tuesday, April thirtieth from six to eight pm. I'll be
out there with a little photo opportunity, some bookmarks that talk about body safety,
some pinwheels, and some friendship bracelets for the children. My goodness,
you guys think of it all, don't you do? Well? But you've
been with this year the last couple of times here and you really have all
this just so button down, tied up, ready to go. Your information
is very very solid. You've been telling us about the special month that we're
observing, right, and tell us a little bit about what Ray of Hope
kind of comes in to do to intercedeny situation, absolutely so in terms of
child abuse and run to feel free to step in whenever needed to. What
we do is we're AA, We're a child advocacy center. We're a dual
servicing center. But primarily for this month, we want to highlight our child
Advocacy center and what that means is that we help provide a legally sound and
safe way for a child to come and tell us a little bit about them,
tell when there's allegations of child abuse or neglects. So we don't want
to re traumatize a child while telling their story over and over again. So
we provide kind of like a one stop shop for DHS and for law enforcement
to work together, come together as a team and review the allegations. And
then after that we really provide a lot of ongoing victim advocacy, and so
these families who are probably dealing with the most difficult thing they've ever had to
deal with, they're not alone. We're helping them walk through that process.
We're helping them navigate community resources and support systems and make sure that they are
prepared if they have to testify in court. So we're doing all of that
so from the time that there's an initial outcry of abuse through the entire process,
Ray of Hope is there to help them to rebuild hope and move forward
and healing. Well, this wasn't built overnight, and these partnerships took a
long time in coming, sure, but they have geled so well with the
wonderful stewardship of everyone involved with Ray of Hope. It's not an easy thing.
And really, you know, when you talk about the partnership, that
really is so important when you're dealing with these difficult cases, because we want
to ensure that everybody who's involved has all of the information, who they have
access to, the best research, the best resources, so that we can
get the best outcomes for kids and families. Now, yah see, you
do a lot of the outreach, you do a lot of the seminars you
do a lot of the kind of the hands on training almost really yeah,
and this is something that you learn every day different things. It's not like
you went to school and then one day you had at all. Everything changes
some time to tell me absolutely, yeah, every day it's different. No
one client's need is the same as the next or the one before. In
terms of the training, I think they're great. Oftentimes we don't like to
talk about child abuse or anything that we deal with really a ray of hope.
It's an uncomfortable subject. But I have found that when I go out
into the community and do the recognizing and reporting training, people have great questions
like it's something that you don't think about, but when presented with the information,
like have you stopped to think if you work in an industry or with
a program that deals with children, or is in care or control of children,
what's your policy for reporting child abuse? If you were to run across
it, like are you familiar with that? And it's just good to refresh
that policy, either to them according to their complete policies or let them know
what the state says, because if you're not thinking about it always, it's
easy for what for that policy to slip in the back of your mind,
and we always want to reinforce in Oklahoma, you're a mandate or reporter.
It's my number one thing that yeah from Mettenberg, that I say it about
fifty times in the presentation. You are a mandated reporter in the state of
Oklahoma. But it's always good to freshen up and recheck those policies and just
take a look like, would you be able to recognize childebius? Oh,
there you go. Abusers usually have been abusing for a long time. They're
very sneaky, they're very diabolical, and there are going to be times where
even the best eyes not recognize. Yeah. I think the research tells us
that at least ninety percent of the time children are sexually abused by somebody that
they know. And so that means that people who are intent on harming children
put themselves in places where they have access to kids. They infiltrate families and
churches and community groups. And that's uncomfortable to think about. But like Yosi
said, when we have really good child protection policies, when everybody has been
trained on what to look for, that helps protect children. And it's so
important. Now you know, see you where do you have your outreach programs?
Do you go to clubs, different organizations or different parent groups and things
like that. Yeah? Absolutely, if you want me to train you,
it's it's a good time. It's about forty five minutes to an hour.
I can go out to you. So earlier this month I did the BSA,
so the Boys Scouts of America and the cub Scouts as well. So
I'm more than happy to go out to any parent group, any organization that
you know is involved with children. And you also work with hospitals and clinics
and things like that, and from private doctors. Correct. Absolutely, Yeah,
we have such a great network of professionals who have been trained to recognize
and respond and evaluate child abuse, and so we're so grateful for the ways
that they contribute to the community helping keep kids safe through the medical community.
Now we've got something here, Like you said, we're going to do something
to end this month of Awareness on a sweet note. Let's repeat that for
the pot. Yeah. So we're gonna be at Jared's this upcoming Tuesday,
August thirtieth from six to eight pm, and we're going to be out there
with a photo back drop, some body safety bookmarks, some pinwheels, some
friendship bracelets. And then again Muscleman was generous and they sponsored one free kiddy
Sunday per a kid under eighteen. Yeah, it'll be fun, it will
be I think the weather's actually going to stop rating. I know. Yeah,
yeah, Now, if I know that funding is a big deal because
you can't just operate it on goodwill and sunshine. Even though we are the
Ray of Hope, It's going to take a ray of dollars sometimes. If
somebody wants to make a contribution to the cause, you'll accept it, won't
you absolutely will. We are a nonprofit and so we rely on community funding
and individuals to donate to the programs that we run at Ray of Hope.
If you are interested in making a contribution, you can visit our website.
You can learn more about the work that we do, and you can click
the donate now button. There's ways that you can donate a one time gift
or a monthly gift, or even include us in your long term estate planning.
We'd love to have that conversation with you very good. I know there
are folks that my age where that conversations up. Yeah, it's starting to
Yeah, it's starting to be more important to me too. Yeah, and
so don't put it off. Make a phone call if you will. I
want to thank you Ray of Hope Advocacy Center. And where can we find
the website that is wt Ray of Hope ac dot org. Well there yet,
go. I love it. I want to thank you ladies both for
coming in and sharing with us today. It's always a special occasion to have
you in here. And don't forget the big event coming up in Jared's ice
Cream, the Big Scoop, and that is coming up on Tuesday the thirtieth.
Yes, right, and what's the timeframe on it? That is six
pm to eight pm, six pm to eight pm. When you're eighteen,
you get a kiddy Sunday. Yes, we all supplies. Yes, well,
thank you for being with us today. Thank you