I chose to create my poem about the rise in child abuse cases due to the coronavirus pandemic. The article by Candy Woodall in USA Today talked about the increase in severe child abuse cases where children are being hospitalized and unfortunately killed. The article talks about how Dr. Norrell Atkinson, section chief of the child protection program at St. Christophers Hospital for Children located in Philadelphia noticed that children are coming in with more severe injuries that are requiring hospitalization. She mentions that either the stress of a pandemic or increased time at home is leading to the rise in child abuse. The hospital has teams of doctors who either are dedicated to noticing signs of physical abuse or sexual abuse in children. Both teams are noticing a rise in severity. This article was incredibly sad to see how many children are mistreated and are living in unsafe conditions. Towards the end of the article, there is a list of names of children who were killed or severely injured by their own parents. The last line of my poem is about one of the children mentioned in the article who was killed at just 6 weeks old. I took many headings and facts from the article to use in my poem. I compiled things that stood out to me such as the statistic that ” 1 in 4 children in America experience maltreatment at some point”. This is an important issue that I feel needs to be discussed more because many children are in serious danger.
Woodall, Candy. “As Hospitals See More Severe Child Abuse Injuries during Coronavirus, ‘the Worst Is Yet to Come’.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 13 May 2020, www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/13/hospitals-seeing-more-severe-child-abuse-injuries-during-coronavirus/3116395001/.
Hi Caitlin! Your poem spoke large volumes to me because this is such an important issue that needs to be recognized more often in society. Before reading your poem, I did not really think about how the pandemic could lead to an increase of child abuse and I think that it is very important for people to educate themselves and do research on this topic because an increase of stress from staying at home and isolation leading to child abuse is a huge issue. The fact that 1 in 4 children in America experience maltreatment at some point is horrifying and needs to be changed.