McMahon/Ryan Child Advocacy Center

January 23, 2012

To the Community,

A big hearty THANK YOU to everyone involved with our Town Hall Meeting on Preventing Child Abuse in Youth Athletics…A Call to Action.

The media coverage was unprecedented and special thanks go to ClearChannel Radio, CNY Central, Fox-68, News Channel 9, the Post-Standard, WCNY, and YNN.

Thanks to our moderator, Becky Palmer of B104.7 who has become an advocate for the McMahon/Ryan mission over the past few months.

These are difficult and troubling times for our community. The developments at Syracuse University are drawing media and community attention to child sexual abuse in ways we have never before seen in Central New York.  It is a time that demands the experience and leadership of the McMahon/Ryan Child Advocacy Center and all who support it.  I am writing to update you on how we are responding to this call.

Both national and local data demonstrates a growing challenge. Nationally, one out of four girls and one out of six boys will experience some form of sexual abuse before the age of 18 (Center for Disease Control, 2005). Right here in Onondaga County in 2010 alone, there were more than 5,000 child abuse reports to the child abuse hot line representing approximately 9,000 children who were suspected victims of abuse, often by the people they trust most.

McMahon/Ryan’s former location on West Onondaga Street lacked the space to effectively coordinate the services and needs for all these children and their families. Despite our best efforts, many of the services these young victims need remained scattered across the county. At the most critical point of disclosure, a child was not able to receive all services in a child-friendly location. Further, to get needed treatment and support, abused children and their families had to negotiate a maze of systems, which can be completely overwhelming. The community was also burdened by the costs of a fragmented system.

The McMahon/Ryan organization has worked hard to change all that.