“Spank her if she needs it.”

I was profoundly shocked to hear my mother speak these words to my kindergarten teacher on the first day of school. First of all, she had never spanked me. No one had. Secondly, she’d never had a reason to. When you are a little girl who has never known her dad because he died in a war, you do everything in your little power to please and care for your only remaining parent.

Suddenly, I was introduced to a notion that grown-ups have an alliance that banded together to keep kids in line. I wonder how much this old-fashioned notion, and the attendant idea that children are subordinate to, and less valuable than, relationships among adults, played a part in the silence of scores of adults in the Pennsylvania State University community? So many there put their alliance with an athletic figure ahead of their responsibility to protect vulnerable children.

Here in Spokane and in our region, we have done our best to break through our cultural denial and admit that sexual abuse of children can and does happen here. In the last 25 years, Lutheran Community Services has evolved specialized treatment programs for victims of sexual assault, both adults and children. Kids First in Colville, and Partners with Families & Children in Spokane, have actively collaborated with Child Protective Services and law enforcement to develop accredited children’s advocacy centers where all professionals involved in the diagnosis and treatment of child sexual and physical abuse can coordinate interventions.

Children, once identified, do not fall through the cracks.

Every county prosecutor in Washington has convened a group to establish a protocol for gathering evidence about this crime against children. The goals of the protocol are investigations conducted in a way that begins the healing process for the individual child, while making our communities and neighborhoods safer by holding offenders accountable.

Is Washington the state different from Penn State? Last year, over 4,800 child victims of these crimes against their personhood were treated at the 18 working children’s advocacy centers in our state.

We have done all that because we know that one in four girls, and one in six boys, are likely to have been sexually abused by the time they are 18 years old.

And what about the concept of protecting children before any injury befalls them? What would that take?

Washington was one of the first states to establish a cabinet-level agency for the prevention of child abuse; the Council for Children and Families. There is an exemplary training program, Darkness to Light: Stewards of Children, that trains adults to plan for child safety in any group setting.

Do I have to mention that all of these programs have suffered severe reductions, and most are slated for elimination in the governor’s initial, all-cuts budget proposal?

Here’s what it would take to protect children. The children of the 21st century need an alliance of grown-ups to band together, all right, with the goal of protecting their innocence.

Repeat after me: “I vow to believe that child abuse can happen anywhere. And that I will carefully plan for proper adult supervision of children in every group I am part of – and will speak up if I have any concerns. I will always assert that children come first.”