Calgary is centre stage for an international meeting of agencies all aimed at preventing child abuse on Monday hoping to nail down some positive change in the issue that impacts hundreds of millions of kids every year.
The Congress for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect is taking place at the Telus Convention Centre and will host nearly 1,200 people and feature experts from 42 different countries.
One speaker, Sheldon Kennedy, shared his own experience of being sexually abused when he was younger and how that has tempered his focus on prevention and treatment for others.
Kennedy said that he did get emotional while speaking at the conference, but it didn’t have anything to do with what happened to him in the past.
“There’s some things that, you know, I continually work on. For me, to get emotional today, is really out of gratitude because there was a time in my life that I never believed Sheldon Kennedy would be speaking at an IPSCAN conference. A lot of times, when we started this journey, when many of us were still around, it was different.”
Kennedy says it is very important for organizations at all levels to open dialogues about treatments being used around the world.
He says that child abuse is everyone’s issue and the most important thing to learn is how to work together.
“There are tons that we can learn. Our ears are going to be open on the cultural aspect. If we look at Calgary, it is a very diverse city. We just had cultural sensitivity training in the Tsuu T’ina First Nation all weekend for the all of the front line for the first time,” Kennedy said.
“That isn’t an end game, That is continuing. We are always learning, Learning is just part of the work we can do.
Kennedy says that people need to work differently. “All of the systems exist. They exist in our province, our city, our country. This isn’t about reinventing the wheel or creating a new ministry to deal with children; they exist. It’s about working together and challenging them to work differently.”
He says that change is slowly taking hold in the issue of child abuse prevention, but more needs to be done.
“We positioned child abuse and family violence issues under a health portfolio and we’re the only country to have done that. To me, I think that gives us permission to look at it as a health issue and I think the science is catching up enough to allow us to challenge Western medicine on the developing brain of kids who have been impacted by child abuse.”
Other speakers at the conference include academics, doctors, lawyers and social workers from around the world.
The University of Calgary’s Social Work department is hosting the event to help bring the issue into the spotlight.
Conference-goers will discuss solutions, support and practical advice over the course of the event before it wraps up on Wednesday.
