With April being National Child Abuse Prevention month, organizations around the Morgantown community came together for a night of prevention discussion.
Members from the Monongalia and Preston County United Way organization, like Janette Lewis, set up a meeting at the Spruce Street United Methodist Church in Morgantown to discuss mandated reporting.
Leaders of Tuesday’s meeting say everyone is considered a mandated reporter and should be made aware of how to speak up when they see or realize a child has been abused.
“We’re doing that training because we’ve had a lot of requests for it in the community just from neighbors, from friends, from first responders, from camp counselors and people that are going to be working with kids a lot or found themselves in situations where they may come in contact with children and they aren’t quite sure what to do,” said Lewis.
Shannon Corso, a participant of the mandated reported training, said it’s a simple as picking up the phone when there’s a sign of obuse.
“Being a mandated reporter doesn’t mean you know what the average person thinks that it means, if you suspect something you know just make that phone call you could be saving a child’s life or even an adult’s life you know so it’s really important for folks to be aware you know that you can help someone just by making a phone call,” said Corso.
More training will be scheduled at the Spruce Street United Methodist Church in the coming months.
