WC Wisconsin News

With April designated as Child Abuse Prevention month across the country, the Coulee Region Child Abuse Prevention Task Force is among those leading the charge in keeping children safe.

"No parent intends to hurt their child; its stress, its mental health, its lots of things," Task Force Chair Nicole Milliren recently told WEAU.com. "We need to move beyond what's wrong with people; it's more about what's happened to that adult and can we get underneath that." 

Milliren believes that finding the root cause of abuse is the best way to keep children from falling victim to future harm.

A collaborative of 24 different entities, all committed to limiting the instances of child abuse across the region, this year marked the 25th anniversary of the task force.

New Horizons, the YWCA and the La Crosse Family and Children's Center are among the groups that make up the task force, the WEAU report said. All the entities provide resources for abuse victims, with Great Rivers United Way working to make sure all the resources stay readily available.

"La Crosse County Human Services gets anywhere between 15-1,700 referrals per year regarding child abuse or neglect," Milliren said. "That's a lot of children in our community that have faced something in their life that we wished that they didn't."

In 2021, Great Rivers United Way Development Director Katie Sparks said the organization invested more than $337,000 in domestic violence and child abuse programming. She is hoping the organization will be able to provide the same kind of support this year, with United Way hosting a fundraiser from April 4-8 to directly benefit the programs. 

"We're asking the community to join us and raise funds specifically for the nine programs that United Way funds in those categories," Sparks told WEAU.