Seeking an end to child abuse in Eastern Europe

Delegates from Corvallis’ Sister City in Uzhhorod, Ukraine, are in town this week to meet with representatives from local agencies that work for the welfare of children and families — specifically to gain skills in recognizing and diagnosing child abuse.

The visitors include Zita Batori Tartsi, the president of the Sisters City Association of Uzhhorod, and delegates Volodymyr Bashkiryev, Svitlana Khvust and Valentyna Shevchuk. In Uzhhorod, they are social workers, psychologists, therapists and educators working to help families cope with issues ranging from domestic violence to the long-lasting trauma of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown.

Both Batori Tartsi and Bashkiryev work in the Department of Sociology and Social Work at Uzhhorod National University.

Simply acknowledging the problem of child abuse and domestic violence in Ukraine is a step in the right direction, Batori Tartsi said.

“A hidden problem of abuse in orphanages; it is our pain,” she said.

Wednesday morning, the members of the delegation listened intently to presentations by the director and staff of the Old Mill Center for Children and Families.

Executive director Steve Golston spoke to the delegates about the center’s relief nursery program, which offers assistance to at-risk families by pairing childcare with parent education programs.

“At-risk families — families with high stress — are more likely to have abuse problems,” Golston said. Those risk factors include drug and alcohol abuse, mental health issues for either a parent or child, teenage parents, single mothers, families living in poverty, parents who were sexually or physically abused as children, financial difficulties such as unemployment, no family support or living in an unsafe area.

“If any of these factors exist in a family, the possibility of child abuse goes way up,” Golston said. “The idea is intervention before child abuse occurs.”

The goal is the interruption of these problems from one generation to the next,” explained Cindy Bond of the Old Mill Center.

The delegation, which arrived May 11, has been busy soaking up as much information about child welfare and education as possible. Wednesday the group met with staff members from the Center Against Rape and Domestic Violence. The group also has visited the Department of Human Services’ Child Welfare Program, the Children’s Farm Home, the Parent Enhancement Program, the Benton County Courthouse and Parole and Probation. Additional visits to ABC House, Court Appointed Special Advocates and Community Outreach are planned before the visitors depart Sunday.

The delegates plan to use their experiences to help create violence-prevention programs in Uzhhorod and enhance existing educational programs to reach out to at-risk children.

Contact city reporter Nancy Raskauskas at 541-602-0539 or nancy.raskauskas@lee.net. Follow her on Twitter @NancyR10.