Lynn holds child abuse prevention breakfast

LYNN – The Lynn Community Connections Coalition held the 9th Annual Child Abuse Prevention Awareness Breakfast Wednesday at City Hall.For the last nine years, the LCC has brought together the mayor’s office, Department of Children and Families, parents, organizations, agencies and local public officials with the Lynn Public Schools to advocate for the families and children within the city.LCC Director Pamela Freeman stressed the importance of child abuse prevention in the community.”Lynn, back in 2002, was noted out of 23 communities the highest reported child abuse in the country,” she said. “Today we have over 1,000 in care in Lynn. This is our way of saying to our community we need to educate each other. We need to help make sure that families and children are shown how to reduce the number of children going into foster care. Today is about helping families and children.”She also said being able to hold the event at City Hall is an honor.”I think today’s event is so important because Mayor Judith Flanagan-Kennedy has been the only mayor that has opened up her door to bring this event to City Hall,” Freeman said. “We are so thankful and honored to have that happen today. It is a big event for us. It is not about the number of people who come out today, it is about the number of people who come and get the education.”Kennedy opened the event by talking about growing up with a number of foster siblings and how proud she was of her parents for recognizing how important the issue was, even 40 years ago.”At the time I didn’t realize what my parents were doing, but when I look out at the audience today, I see that even then I was being taught something important about families and protecting children and giving them a chance to have a good upbringing,” Kennedy said. “We have to come together to discuss what we can do to strengthen our families and our children.”For LCC Chairman Steve Duffy the breakfast is an important part of the message they are trying to send out to the community.”Being a survivor of child sexual abuse, this breakfast is really kind of a baby for me, so to speak, because I know growing up and being abused, the tools weren’t there for my parents or even for the community,” he said. “We just hope that we are giving the right tools so that folks here can go out and spread the word of awareness.”Guest speakers included state Rep. Robert F. Fennell, Commissioner of Department of Children and Families Angelo McClain, Department of Massachusetts Corrections Commissioner Harold Clarke, state Sen. Thomas McGee and Richard Powers, the Lynn Area Director for the Department of Children and Families.”The theme is strengthening families and children,” Clarke said. “Its very important. From the Department of Corrections perspective, we are able to see the aftermath of a broken family. We see what occurs in a dysfunctional family and we see that apparent, never-ending cycle of parents, children and grandchildren becoming consumers of the criminal justice system. It is something we need to change and we need to figure out how we can do it.”The mission of the event was to begin the partnership of challenging the community to start to represent families and children by promoting the DCI Model, created by the Say Yes Institute, to develop and reach goals for families and their children.SYI Education Director Carrie Stack taught the DCI Model, which focuses on thinking about the strengths as opposed to what is lacking in a particular situation. DCI, which stands for define, clarify and implement, asks that you consider what it is you want, why you want it and how you are going to go about getting it.