Cycle unbroken

Something an ex-girlfriend told Tom Sartwell decades ago, when he was 19 years old, has stuck with him his entire adult life.

“When she broke up with me, the words she used were, ‘You couldn’t possibly love me. You never hit me,’” Sartwell recently recalled. Even now, at 66, his brow furrows at the memory, because he’s still perplexed by her reasoning. “It wasn’t until years later that I started thinking about where that stuff came from, why that young lady equated pain and violence with love.”

Sartwell believes his long-ago girlfriend’s warped view of relationships was rooted in physical abuse she suffered as a child, and that her expectations speak to the cyclical nature of such violence. Left unaddressed, it passes down generation to generation as abused children become abusive parents, he said.

“It’s a cliché, but children are our future, and we’re perpetuating the kind of violence that creates more abusers.”

That’s what motivates Sartwell to spread awareness of child abuse of all kinds—emotional, physical and sexual, as well as general neglect. For nearly two decades, he worked as regional operations manager for a construction and rental company based in Hayward. Now retired in Chico, he’s made it his mission to jumpstart conversations on the prevalence of abuse against children, the lasting damage it inflicts, and how community engagement is vital. In his own words, he’s a full-time advocate for child abuse prevention.

For National Child Abuse Month this April, Sartwell is heading up Child Abuse Prevention March in Chico on April 11. Other coinciding local events include the annual Children’s Faire in Chico City Plaza on April 18.

Part of the challenge of raising the visibility of child abuse is that it’s an uncomfortable subject. Most people would rather not acknowledge that it happens at all, Sartwell says, let alone in their neighborhood—or family.

That observation is shared by Margie Ruegger, who has served as executive director of Butte County’s Child Abuse Prevention Council for the past 14 years.

“Years ago, when we had a booth at the farmers’ market, I watched how people would read my sign and veer away,” she said. “The next week, I conducted an experiment. I didn’t bring the sign, and sure enough, people came up and asked what I was doing. It’s a visceral thing.”

Regardless of whether anyone’s willing to talk about it, child abuse does happen here in Butte County. According to the most recent statistics, Butte County Children’s Services Division (formerly Child Protective Services, or CPS) received 3,691 calls for investigation in 2012, and 598 children were found to be the victims of abuse or neglect. That year, about 80 percent of children removed from their homes were victims of general or severe neglect, while 4 percent were physically abused and 3 percent were emotionally abused.

Counties in California didn’t record those statistics until 1998, when a federal review of child welfare services gave every state a failing grade. Gathering such information has allowed the county’s service providers to improve their understanding of the risk factors involved and offer programs aimed specifically at addressing them, Ruegger said.

For instance, county social workers know a family’s risk of abuse is disproportionately high if a mother’s maternal age is less than 24 years old, the biological father of her child or children isn’t a member of the household, and she has three or more children, Ruegger said.

“That was an important step, because that [knowledge] allows programs to really target young moms,” she said.

One such program is Butte Baby Steps, an intensive home visiting program for expectant and new mothers age 24 or younger who live in southern Butte County. Its intent is to work with overburdened families who are at risk for adverse childhood experiences, including maltreatment of children.

While Ruegger believes that such targeted services are invaluable for those families, she also emphasizes that addressing child abuse is “not just the social welfare system’s responsibility; it’s really a community responsibility. It’s not just those people over there; they go to school with your kids, we all interact within society.”

That level of awareness and compassion is the key to breaking the cycle of abuse, Sartwell says, and ensuring that future generations don’t confuse violence with love.

“The most important thing we can do as a community is become aware of the problem and what we can do to help,” he said. “For a lot of people, it’s happening right next door. But there are things you can do—you can call CPS, you can call the police. Or, if you’ve got a relationship with your neighbor, try talking to them about it.

“Sometimes, that’s all it takes—a friend to notice there’s a problem.”