23-04-2025
Northeast Child Abuse Conference held by The Child Advocacy Center
ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — The Child Advocacy Center of Greater Rochester continued its work in recognizing April as Child Abuse and Prevention Awareness Month with the Northeast Child Abuse Conference.
The Child Advocacy Center hosted the two-day conference at the Rochester Riverside Convention Center on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Stefanie Szwejvka, Vice President of Prevention Services at the Child Advocacy Center, spoke to News 8 about the event.
'Education is absolutely at the core of this conference. Part of what we aim to accomplish is a renewed commitment and a renewed momentum,' Swejvka said. 'This is hard work for our professionals who are doing this and it's really, really easy to get buried in some of that vicarious trauma.'
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'You don't have to be one of the professionals here today to keep kids safe and to prevent child abuse and child sexual abuse to happen.'
Wednesday's speaker, Sharon Cooper, a Forensic and Developmental Pediatrician, spoke to the importance of having difficult conversations about such a sensitive topic with those who may not work directly with children.
'You have to be mindful that not everybody is where we are. If we are too blatant or too nonchalant about really significant trauma, it traumatizes the listener. We want to be mindful and careful to be as helpfully digestible information so that individuals can listen and try and figure out where's my role in solving this problem,' Cooper said.
Additional information about The Child Advocacy Center of Greater Rochester and upcoming events can be found on their website.
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