WHO Serves Whom                                                                      By Della Cornwall The spokes are identified with the various individuals who serve the child.  Then, moving upward from the child, we note that various sytems with which the child and his family become familiar after a report of child abuse.  Complete the illustration by joining the spokes to enclose each of the systems, as the "FAMILY" has already been done. If we remove the child, what happens to all those persons dependent on the child for his job?  We find the child caught in a web and NOBODY WANTS TO LET GO OF HIM!

From another perspective, in 1984, 1.5 million cases of child abuse were reported.  According to Doug Besharov, who was the original director of the National Center for Abused and Neglected Children form 1975-1979 sixty-five percent of these cases after investigation were unfounded.  These same figures were delivered at the National Governors Conference in August 1985 by a current Administrator, Dorcas Hardy of the National Center.  Sixty-five percent of 1.5 million is 975,000 or the number of people in the Seattle - Bellevue area.  Considering that the reporting involves at least three persons-the abused and the abuser and another spouse or child, the astronomical figure pushes 3 million people. To have that many persons devastated following false accusations of child abuse in a years time cannot be the most terrorizing force in our society today.  It has to be more distructive than any hurricane or tornado, plane crash or hyjacking.  It has to be more tragic than the loss or our Shuttle Seven.  Those who have lived through the process of fighting for their innocense claim that it is a more immediate and dangerously, distructive force to the family than alcohol, drugs or death. It wipes out self esteem and dignity.  It destroys relationships with friends, relatives and co-workers.  It plummets one from the middle income bracket, capable of earning a supportive wage, to the poverty level, frequently dependent on welfare for subsistence.  This very act, then, perpetuates the atmosphere in which abuse is more prevalent, for in a study conducted in Maine they found there were three times as many cases of abuse and childs deaths related to abuse in poor families than in middle income and upper income families. Although we must acknowledge that all these persons are caught in The Web, we must be aware that frequently the one who suffers the most is the child.  The end results of charitable acts are not always necessarily so.