WEDNESDAY, Feb. 1 (HealthDay News) — Child abuse and neglect cost the United States $124 billion a year, which is comparable to the costs of other major public health problems, a new government study shows.

Researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analyzed 1,740 fatal and 579,000 nonfatal cases of child maltreatment over the course of one year.

The investigators found that the lifetime cost for each victim of nonfatal child maltreatment (physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse and neglect) was $210,012. That’s higher than the per-person lifetime cost of stroke ($159,846) and similar to the per-person cost of type 2 diabetes (between $181,000 and $253,000).

The average lifetime cost per victim of nonfatal child maltreatment includes: $32,648 in childhood health care costs; $10,530 in adult medical costs; $144,360 in lost productivity; $7,728 in child welfare costs; $6,747 in criminal justice costs; and $7,999 in special education costs.

Read the full article here> US News Health Page

It’s Our Little Secret celebrates second year of helping children “Learn to Live, Not Just Survive”
By Claudia Lenart

November 14, 2011

It’s Our Little Secret (IOLS) celebrates two years, this month, of bringing hope and healthy recovery skills to children who are physically, emotionally and sexually abused.

Kristie and Maebelle taking time to speak during the 2011 Toy Drive

In the past two years, the non-profit organization has launched numerous successful initiatives and leaders continue to focus on ambitious goals.

“We have a lot of thing going on and we’ve been extremely successful. I think that is 100 percent because of the passion,” said Kristie Sams-Faulkner who founded IOLS with Maebelle Obispo-Emery. Both were abused as children.

Both founders live busy lives, yet find time and energy to devote to IOLS.

“ If you have the ability to change and to make change, that is something that takes over,” Sams-Faulkner said.

IOLS’ aims to stop the destructive cycle of abuse and to help abused children learn to love themselves and enjoy life. The organization’s motto is “Learn to Live, Not Just Survive.”

In the first year of existence, IOLS jumped right in to action with a book bag drive which donated 170 book bags to children. Two weeks later IOLS held a toy drive that provided three toys each to 360 kids, plus blankets for every child.

Sams-Faulkner said their toy drive was different from many other organizations in that the children got what was on their wish list, including big items, like bikes or MP3 players. The drive was for children up to 18, whereas many organizations stop at 15.

“Everything was 100 percent new, not used. If you don’t have anything and you’re given something new, that is huge for your self esteem,” Sams-Faulkner said.

This year, IOLS’s goal for the toy drive is to serve 600 kids. The organization continued its book bag drive in 2011, expanding it to provide books for libraries and supplies for students and teachers.

Sams-Faukner said journey packs have had a huge impact. Journey packs are provided to children going into the foster system.

One of the biggest challenges in the beginning was finding the victims.

“It was difficult in the beginning because a lot of people don’t like to talk about what they are suffering,” Sams-Faulkner said. “Sexual abuse is reported rarely. Physical abuse is easier to see,”

The organization worked with DCFS and also with teachers to determine who needed help.

IOLS started clinical programs including a teen support group, an art and music therapy group and an adult survivors support group.

IOLS leaders have big goals for the future. One of them is a residential facility that would provide a home for 36 children and provide arts program. Direct Design LTD in Prairie Grove donated an architectural rendering and IOLS is seeking a donation of land for the project.

IOLS hopes to have a stamp made from the United States Postal Service for abused children and created the Stamp Out Child Abuse Drawing Contest to submit artwork to the USPS that represents child abuse in the eyes of a child. IOLS is also working to get an Illinois license plate to raise awareness and funds.

Sams-Faulkner said she wants to see the Blue Ribbon Child Abuse Prevention Campaign become as well known as the pink ribbons for breast cancer awareness.

“I’d like to see the blue ribbons be as important as pink ribbons. I want to create an army of people who cared about what I care about,” she said.

http://huntley.patch.com/articles/iols-seeks-to-stamp-out-child-abuse

Thank you to Mayor Charles H. Sass of Huntley, Illinois and Mayor Aaron T. Shepley for signing a Mayoral Proclamation in support of IOLS’s Child Appreciation Initiatives to recognize April as National Child Abuse Month in both Crystal Lake and Huntley, Illinois.  Your support means the world to us!

It’s Our Little Secret hopes to bring Christmas to thousands of children.

By Gloria Casas
Email the author
November 22, 2010

Kristie Sams-Faulkner could count the number of toys she received as a child for Christmas on one hand.

Her childhood was chaotic. She lived in 11 foster homes throughout the years as her parents fought an addiction to crank, a drug similar to methamphetamine.

She does not have cherished Christmas memories. Her memories are of neglect and the sexual abuse she endured at the hands of three relatives.

Sams-Faulkner does not focus on the sadness of her early life. She has used those experiences to reach out to foster children through a Huntley-based organization she co-founded with her friend, Maebelle Obispo-Emery, called It’s Our Little Secret.

The two Huntley women want to give foster children a memorable Christmas so It’s Our Little Secret(IOLS) is holding a toy drive hoping to get 16,000 toys donated for children within the state’s foster care system.

A storefront on Route 47 serves as headquarters for the toy drive. Sams-Faulkner recently walked through the office, leafing through a stack of papers with the names and wish lists of children. The lists sometimes have things that one wouldn’t expect a child to request. Bed sheets. A coat. Children in and out of foster care grow up fast, Sams-Faulkner said.

“It’s humbling,” she said of reading the lists. If a child does request an item like sheets, IOLS will provide it along with the toys. Children need to have toys for Christmas, she said.

To date, IOLS has received about 2,000 donations but is collecting more through Dec. 10, Sams-Faulkner said.

Donations have come through Mattel, Disney and Toys R Us in Crystal Lake, which let IOLS purchase toys at a discount rate, Obispo-Emery said. She and Sams-Faulkner have reached out to friends who own businesses to encourage employees to donate and have placed bins in businesses around town.

IOLS’s role is fulfilling list for agencies that are having trouble getting enough gifts for foster children, she said. Already, IOLS has fulfilled 58 requests from the Department of Children and Family Services in McHenry County and UCAN of McHenry County, both serve foster children. McHenry County has a huge need, Obispo-Emery said.

“What we’ve done is huge without even reaching out to the community,” Sams-Faulkner said.

“The toy drive is something Kristie definitely wanted to go for,” Obispo-Emery said. “She was bounced around in foster families so much that she was not able to celebrate the holidays. She wanted to make sure all foster children had a present to open this Christmas.”

IOLS will collect toys until Dec. 10. For more information, contact Sams-Faulkner at ksams@itsourlittlesecret.org.

By Gloria Casas
Email the author
November 16, 2010

The little girl didn’t talk much.

Her chaotic childhood was filled with pain, the pain of sexual abuse
and moving back and forth between foster homes _ 11 total.

Writing and drawing were her only outlets to express herself and
communicate her pain. Kristie Sams-Faulkner overcame the abuse and grew up to become a co-founder of It’s Our Little Secret, a Huntley-based organization that reaches out to children growing up like she did.

As Sams-Fulkner walked through the front doors of it’s Our Little Secret’s storefront offices recently, she picked up a backpack, called a “journey pack,” nestled among dozens that will be distributed to foster children throughout McHenry County. She pulled out different items neatly tucked into the pockets and retrieved a journal.

“You want them to express what’s going on,” the Huntley woman said.

Sams-Faulkner and her partner, Maebelle Obispo-Emery, founded the organization a year ago to help empower children who have been abused or neglected and are now living in foster care. Like Sams-Faulkner, Obispo-Emery spent her childhood in foster care. Her father physically abused her.

“We are trying to teach the children that yes, this abuse happened to you, but don’t let it affect your life,” Obispo-Emery said. “Both Kristie and I suffered abuse as children. As adults, we feel we have become successful.”

“We have succeeded in not perpetuating the cycle,” she said.

Obispo-Emery grew up in Chicago before her family moved to the suburbs. Due to the physical abuse, a CASA, or Court Appointed Special Advocate, was assigned to Obispo-Emery’s case. A CASA representative helped her see that she could take charge of her own life.
Likewise, two Department of Children and Family Services social workers gave Obispo-Emery hope by telling her not to despair about her family and not to let the situation hold her back, she said. She was able to leave home at age 18. She later married, had three children and recently graduated from DePaul University in Chicago.
“My life has been wonderful since then,” she said. “People who have suffered that kind of trauma in some form or another suffer throughout childhood through the teenage years and into adulthood,” Obispo-Emery said. “They fight those demons until they can fast it and see it has happened but they don’t have to allow it to take over their life.
“I have seen a lot of people who dwell on it and I have met a lot of people who have allowed it to empower them,” Obispo-Emery said.
Empowerment
Sams-Faulkner has been one of those who used it to empower herself. “I spent my whole life running from what they were,” she said. Her parents were both crank addicts, she said. Crank is similar to today’s methamphetamine, she said. At one point, her mother became a prostitute to support her habit. Sams-Faulkner would be taken from the home whenever her parents relapsed or went to rehab. It would happen time and time again, she said.
Eventually, she was sent away to school where she graduated and went onto college. She married and has her own children. The need to give back to the foster system runs deep for those who grew up in it and those who have been abused, she said. Many of the people who are part of IOLS have been abused and feel empowered to give back to children, she said.
“It’s all about empowerment,” Sams-Faulkner said. “You can empower others to empower themselves.
“Children growing up in foster care are “absolutely amazing,” she said, adding they often grow up fast. “They just need that extra push to say you can do this,” she said.
The organization
In the past year, IOLS started a $3.6 million capital campaign for a building. A rendering has been completed and will be on display at the organization’s first anniversary event Friday.

The event will include a wine tasting from 6-9pm at the Talamore Community Clubhouse, 12121 Talamore Blvd.
The capital campaign also gained support from Disney, which donated $66,000 worth of public service announcements and there have been many donations for  the Journey Pack, she said.
Journey Packs have been distributed and the organization has launched a toy drive. IOLS also has been working on its programs. It has a mentoring program and therapeutic programs, like art and music therapy. A new program starting in the spring is called “God, Can You Hear Me?, with a faith-based curriculum to help restore a child’s faith in God and humanity, according to its Web site.
“What we have achieved in 11 months is amazing,” Sams-Faulkner said. For information on IOLS’s anniversary event, contact Sams-Faulkner at ksams@itsourlittlesecret.org.

Jessica writes, “Every Sunday I try to highlight a great cause, charity or non-profit organization”. IOLS was featured because of the vital mission of the organization and because the activities are completely volunteer driven.

Thank you for the thumbs up, Finger Candy!

http://fingercandymedia.com/2977-sundays-best-its-our-little-secret