GIZANE indart
Denver Children’s Advocacy Center
Gizane Indart has spent the last 20 years working with traumatized children and their families. Born and raised in Argentina to parents of Basque origin, Indart’s mother is one of the few living survivors of the bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War in 1937. Her father was raised in Pamplona, famous for its annual “running of the bulls.” Indart was early on exposed to the political tumult of competing cultures and she left Argentina behind at age 29 in pursuit of a more stable future for her family. In June 1991, she arrived in Fort Collins — a place different in almost every way from her native Buenos Aires.
Indart’s first job in Colorado was at a 24-hour facility for children ages 6 to 12 who, due to adverse early life experiences, had difficulties living in a family environment. “I discovered back then that I wanted to learn about trauma and sexual abuse and the profound impact it has on the ability of children to emotionally connect to others, to have fun and to be kids.
In March, the National Children’s Advocacy Center (NCAC) presented Indart with its Outstanding Service Award at the 26th National Symposium on Child Abuse in Huntsville, Ala. The award recognizes professionals who have made a significant contribution to services that address child abuse and exploitation in their communities.
I joined Denver Children’s Advocacy Center (DCAC) in 2003 with a mission to reach out to disadvantaged families in Denver, particularly the immigrant and monolingual Spanish-speaking families who had nowhere to turn and the very young children who cannot speak for themselves. I was born and raised in Argentina, and I know what it’s like to be a stranger in the country you’ve made your home.
I don’t know if you can imagine what it is like to be the victim of such a terrible crime as sexual abuse — the shame, the misery, the confusion and the despair — and then not to be able to communicate with the people who are supposed to be helping you — at DCAC we want the healing to begin as soon as children come into our building.
A key issue we address at DCAC is the needs of the families of child victims — building on strengths and supporting weaknesses. DCAC has built a reputation for working successfully with at-risk families and the majority of children referred to us today are complex and challenging cases that cannot easily be treated by other agencies in Denver. All the children who receive mental health treatment and related services at DCAC come from families with very low incomes. Almost all are uninsured and many are undocumented. We treat all children at no charge, regardless of their insurance or immigration status. When you look at the fact that throughout the U.S., 15 children are sexually abused every hour, you can see what our therapists face on a daily basis. Added to that, more than 45 percent of abused children are under the age of 6, and again that is reflected at DCAC where half the children we see are little ones.
While sexual abuse and domestic violence happens in all families regardless of their background and income level, research shows that poverty, insecure housing or homelessness, tenuous immigration status, lack of child care, and other stressors put families at greater risk. Sadly, the “Kids Count” report recently released by the Colorado Children’s Campaign, shows that child poverty in Colorado has climbed 72 percent since 2000 — an increase of 35,000 children — with the largest increases being for Latino children in Denver.
Also with the recession, we are seeing a significant increase in the numbers of children referred for assessment, together with an increase in the severity and complexity of the children’s cases. With the huge state and local cutbacks in social services staff and in available beds at mental health facilities, many children who would previously have received residential care are being treated as out-patients. These children generally require long-term treatment and their families will need in-depth support, but DCAC may be their only hope. There are some very “damaged” children who may never be considered completely mentally healthy, but with treatment, they are able to function relatively normally given their appalling start in life. For many people, these are “throw-away” children from fractured families destined — without intervention — for a life of drug addiction, domestic violence, crime, incarceration — and, if they have children, the cycle is likely to be repeated. At DCAC, we believe passionately that each of these children deserves an opportunity to be healed and to enjoy a normal childhood.
In 2009, we saw 352 children under the age of six who were victims of abuse. Prevention programs are a priority for us. In addition to the immeasurable benefit for children and families, prevention is actually much, much less expensive for society when you consider the cost of the lifelong mental and physical problems for each child whose abuse and neglect goes untreated.
Although sexual abuse prevention programs had been available for older children, until DCAC began to implement “Denver Safe from the Start,” Denver had no programs developmentally tailored to pre-school and kindergarten children and their parents, and there certainly were no bilingual/bicultural prevention programs for very young children, their families, and educators.
And the results demonstrate that this program is highly effective, so effective in fact, that the federal government recently awarded us one of only six demonstration projects nationwide to reach many more at-risk children and families.
www.DenverCAC.org