Rep. Tom Reed (R-Corning)
JAMESTOWN – Chautauqua County’s representative in Congress was in Jamestown earlier this week to raise awareness about sexual abuse and what can be done to prevent it.
Congressman Tom Reed spent Monday afternoon at the Child Advocacy Program’s Jamestown office, completing the Stewards of Children Abuse Prevention training.
April is both Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month as well as Child Abuse Awareness Month, and Reed said Monday was an opportunity to put these two issues at the forefront.
“We wanted to do this to show that all of us care – I care – and want to make sure that we do what we can for today’s children and tomorrow’s children to prevent these horrific crimes from being committed on them.”
Reed said he also is hoping that by attending Monday’s training event, it will raise awareness of child sexual abuse, considering children are the largest group that is affected by sexual abuse in the United States.
“Youth under 18 are victims of 66 percent of all sexual offenses reported to law enforcement,” Reed said. “That is mind boggling and is something that we can do better on and need to do better on. The way we start to do that is to raise awareness and in order to raise awareness, we first have to break though this barrier where people are hesitant to talk about this program in an open and transparent way.”
Reed’s Jamestown office staff joined him in the training as did Chautauqua County Executive Vince Horrigan and staff of Assemblyman Andrew Goodell. The training for Reed and his staff is one of the action items from a Sexual Assault Awareness Roundtable hosted by Reed in Fredonia.
Reed also recently introduced a resolution in the United States House of Representatives supporting the goals and ideals of Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month.
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