The website of Lauren's Kids, a Florida awareness and legislation group, features a prominent photo of Joe Paterno, fired as coach of the Penn State football team after former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky was charged with abusing eight boys over 15 years.
Mission Kids, a Blue Bell agency that seeks to ease the criminal-justice process for abused children, has seized the moment by posting news and information on Facebook, Twitter, and the agency website, and by talking with members of the media.
"Child abuse is the last great taboo in American culture," said Abbie Newman, executive director of Mission Kids. "We talk about all other kinds of sex without hesitation."
But with child abuse, "the idea is so abhorrent that normal people don't want to see," she said. "It's a very ugly part of society that society is going to have to look at if we're going to stop it."
Penn State isn't the only school in trouble. Syracuse University fired longtime basketball associate head coach Bernie Fine over allegations of child molestation.
Groups such as PCAPA want to see child abuse combated like other public-health issues - not as a shameful, hidden subject. They believe they can reduce the incidence of abuse in the same way other, earlier campaigns resulted in more people wearing seat belts and fewer smoking tobacco.
"The Penn State, and now Bernie Fine, story have taken the conversation about child abuse out of the closet," said psychotherapist Kathy Seifert, executive director of Eastern Shore Psychological Services in Maryland. "It's broken our denial about how famous and revered people cannot possibly be offenders."
