The National Center for Victims of Crime sponsors a website that provides valuable information and assistance for crime victims.  It is called VictimLaw and is accessed at www.victimlaw.info. VictimLaw is a unique and groundbreaking resource offering a comprehensive, searchable, online database of more than 16,000 victims’ rights-related legal provisions, including:

What is it going to take before top leaders in our government address the issue of child abuse and neglect?  They thankfully continue to fund programs that have been in existence for a very long time such as foster care, adoption, and a whole list of other services, but they do not ever speak about putting an end to child abuse. They also never bring up the enormous amount of violence occurring daily within American homes.

The safety of children is addressed in the states primarily by removing children from the home and placing them in foster care or adoptive families. Until the U.S. Congress looks at the root causes of this problem, we will continue to pay billions of dollars to support these Band-Aid approaches. I am not against foster care or adoption, although there are a lot of problems even with those measures. I am more interested in stopping child abuse and neglect in the first place.

There have been many studies documenting the effect child abuse has on many women’s sexual activity later in life. Naturally, these problems impact a woman’s ability to sustain a loving, long-term, intimate relationship.

The foundations for good mental health are laid down in the emotional development that occurs in infancy and later in childhood. When a child experiences a warm, intimate and continuous relationship with his/her mother or other caregiver, that child will grow and thrive. On the other hand, an unresponsive parent, or one who responds inappropriately to a child’s needs,  will increase the likelihood of the child becoming anxious and insecure in its attachment.