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KC Star Features Sunflower House on Front Page
EXPOSING CHILD ABUSE | A gentle path to harsh truth
A PLACE TO TELL
Sunflower House provides a comfort zone where children can open up about life’s most frightening, painful moments.
By LEE HILL KAVANAUGH | THE KANSAS CITY STAR
Minutes before their father’s sentencing, his three daughters waited in the corridor of a Wyandotte County courtroom, Division 5.
Their eyes swollen, makeup cried off, the women wrapped their arms around each other. They grieved, but not for their father and his fate. One held crumpled papers in her hand.
“I’m not sure I’ll be strong enough to read this in court,” she said. After days of finding words to describe her pain, she had typed a victim impact statement confronting her father for his sexual abuse against her years ago. But his sickness reached much deeper in their family.
The second paper was handwritten in the broad cursive loops of a 10-year-old – where words screamed in bold letters when emotion turned profane.
It was composed by the second generation of victimhood, the convicted man’s granddaughter.
The child who told. The one who stopped the man’s decades-long spree of satisfying his urges with children, but not until after she attempted suicide twice and drew pictures of monsters visiting her bed.
Her details of the abuse – revealed at Sunflower House – led to her grandfather confessing everything, including how he’d “loved” her at least 20 times last year.
Every day, a child endures the unwelcome touch of a predator. Nationally, statistics indicate it happens to one in four girls, one in six boys. But abuse experts know Continue reading
Sunflower House 2012 Valentine Gala
Over 400 Celebrate Sunflower House 30th Anniversary Helping Abused Children
Larry Moore, Emcee (second from left) and Gary Ryther, Auctioneers – honored for 30 years of volunteering for Sunflower House.
2011 Circle of Safety Fundraising Breakfast
Script of Michelle Herman’s Keynote Address
Delivered Nov. 10, 2011 to an audience of over 300 people at the Jack Reardon Civic Center in downtown Kansas City, Kansas.
In a perfect world no child will ever be hurt at the hand of an adult—but until that day comes, Wyandotte and Johnson County children have a safe place like Sunflower House to come tell their story, only once, and begin the healing process. Sunflower House began 14 years ago when the Wyandotte County Sunflower Children’s Center that was using a best practice approach for interviewing children suspected of being abused merged with the Johnson County Coalition for the Prevention of Child Abuse that was advocating for child abuse laws and educating the community on how to recognize and report suspected abuse.
Today, Sunflower House is a premier Children’s Advocacy Center. We PARTNER with educators, law enforcement, Continue reading
