Project Update – Week 6 (Final Week)

by Tameya Robinson

WE DID IT! WE MADE IT TO THE END….After 6 weeks of intense work, group meetings, stress, and a lot of late night – we finally made it to the end of our collaborative project. My partner Mary turned in the final link for our group blog on Monday, which was a day early and I couldn’t have been more happy. I’m happy that we could turn it in early and happy that we made it to the finish line. There were quite a few times were I was overwhelmed, but I was able to push through those feelings and complete the assignment.

I had mentioned that I wish Mary and I would meet more often, but I realized that she’s a full time teacher, a teacher at SCSU, and we both just have extremely busy schedules. Luckily, we were able to meet twice over the final 2 weeks – once last week and once this past Tuesday. Both meetings were extremely insightful and Mary helped me get a better understand of what our portfolio should or could look like. Honestly, I’ve never had to do a portfolio, so not having any type of example wasn’t helpful for me.

I think this entire project was extremely meaningful and I think we did a great job, especially considering the fact that we only had 2 people in our group and all the other groups had 4-5 people. We did a lot of work and put in a ton of hours in order to complete this project and I’m so happy that we were able to finish the project strong. Now it’s time to tackle the portfolio and pray that I get a good grade on that, because I have literally NO IDEA what I’m doing – so fingers crossed. This has been fun, but I’m glad this part is over. ON TO THE PORTFOLIO!!!

Project Update – Week 5

by Tameya Robinson

We’re nearing the home stretch! And I couldn’t be happier. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this project, but I’ve been working from home, still helping my son with distance learning, helping my husband with some of his school work – all while trying not to fail this class. So it’s blessing to have made it this far. I haven’t met with Mary (my project partner) in a few weeks and I’m assuming that everything is going well. I think we are both extremely busy so trying to lock down some time, especially a reoccurring meeting, has proven to be difficult to do. With that being said, I’m hoping that our group project is cohesive and flows together despite the fact that we haven’t checked in very much.

As far as this week goes, I have a lot of things planned. Along with this blog, I plan to post at least 3 times throughout the week in out group blog – with one post including a video I will be creating with my son. I’m trying to decide if I want to include the other video I’ll be making on our group blog or if I just want to share it on our social media pages. I’m thinking of doing both, because it’s nice when you have multiple areas where you access one piece of information. I will be honest and say that my videos will probably not be the greatest, because I’m not very tech savvy when it comes to creating videos or editing videos – so bare with me.

I think I did a great job with my social media presence last week. I’ve to think outside of the box as far as adding additional information, outside videos/documentaries that support our topic, articles that go with our topic, as well as victories for survivors of child abuse/maltreatment. I personally think I’ve been doing better with the social media aspect of our project than our group blog, because I find it easier to share information and give it a caption than trying to create brand new content from scratch. For our group blog, I might create a post that gives some resources per state for child abuse prevention and/or intervention. I’m not sure if that’s blog worthy, but I think it would be important information to have all in one place – in case somebody needs it.

We’re so close to end of the semester and this project is a great way to wrap up the semester. The last few weeks have been a bit hectic for me, but I’m glad that I’m able to get large pieces of our group project done and that I have a plan going into this final week of the project before creating the project portfolio. I’m pumped and ready to get working on this final week.

Project Update – Week 4

by Tameya Robinson

I can’t believe that we only have 3 more weeks left of our project. I feel like I’m FINALLY getting into the swing of things and it’s about to be over. So far, it’s been a great and challenging experience. As I shared last week, I’ve finally been able to access our group blog so I’ve been doing my best to catch up on getting caught up with my portion of blog postings, but once I get more ideas of blog posts, I’ll be able to get 3-4 posts done in a week – I’m a pretty quick writer. As of right now, creating blog posts is my top priority and I’ll be catching up during Thanksgiving break.

I also have to create 2 videos before I start creating my portfolio and I only have one idea, but I don’t know how I want to record or how long the video should be. Once I narrow all that down, I plan on doing both videos either in the same day or in the same week so they’re done and I don’t have to worry about them anymore. I’ve been tweeting and posting on Instagram at least twice a week, if possible. If I miss a week, I make sure I make up for that throughout the following week.

The only thing I found disheartening is that my partner and I haven’t really talked too much throughout the process, so she has all these clean blog posts and media graphics, while I’m just doing everything generically. I would’ve liked us to come up with a theme or format for our blog postings and media graphics so that everything flowed together, and we would BOTH use those formats when posting. Right now, it looks like a bunch of different random people are posting from our social media and blog sites. There should be some sort of cohesion or consistency throughout our social media sites and our blog as well. Other than that, I think the group project has going pretty smoothly.

UNTIL NEXT WEEK’S CHECK-IN….

Project Update – Week 3

by Tameya Robinson

This past week has been extremely busy for me, but I was able to get a few posts out on our group blog. I had been having some difficulty accessing the blog as an author, but Mary worked her magic and made everything work out just fine. I’m 2 weeks behind on posting in our group blog so I have to post at least three times – one of which I already did for this week – but I’ll add the other two by the weekend so I can get caught up.

I’ll be honest – I’m having a little difficulty figuring out what to post on our group blog, because I’m not sure if I want to share a whole bunch of personal stories and I haven’t really asked anyone else if they have any stories they’d like to share. I feel like you can only share so much information and statistical data on the issue before you become redundant or start to sound boring. My hope is that I can run through some ideas with Mary sometime this week.

One frustrating piece of working in a group is trying to get a meeting scheduled each week so you can check in, ask questions, make sure everyone is still on the same page, and come up with a game plan so everyone does their share of the project. I’m really hoping that we can chat sometime this week and catch up, because we still have videos that we have to make and submit in the next 2 weeks and I’m not the best at creating content like that, so I was looking forward to picking Mary’s brain and seeing if she could give me some much needed guidance.

My focus for this week is to do at least two posts on Instagram and two posts on Twitter, in addition to adding two new posts to our group blog. I think if you post twice a week on your social media pages, you’ll meet the requirements. I’m also keeping screen shots of each post that I make, including the blog postings, so I can use them throughout my project portfolio. I’m really looking forward to completing this project, because it’s been really difficult for me.

Project Update – Week 2

by Tameya Robinson

So we were able to create our group blog, but I’ve had some difficulty getting access to it so I can post content. Mary has been working tirelessly to get that corrected and once that issue gets fixed, I’ll go in a post at least 2 posts to get caught up. Our group blog was set up by Mary and she has done the first post – which is AMAZING. I’m really looking forward to seeing how the blog flourishes and grows as we progress in our project.

For a social media presence, our group decided to focus on Twitter and Instagram. So far we have some great posts, with great information. As of today, I’ve posted twice on our Twitter account and once on our Instagram account. During our last meeting, Mary suggested that I take a screenshot of all of my postings so I can have them ready for the portfolio that’s due at the end of the semester and I thought was a FANTASTIC idea – so that’s what I’ll be doing from now on.

When choosing content to post, I’m trying to find creative pictures, articles, and other informative things to add to our social media pages. I’m pretty tech savvy, so I’m not too worried about how to post them, I’m just trying to find the best ones that will really help drive our point home. I’m also working on video ideas so I can have them recorded and posted by the end of the month. I’ll probably release them on YouTube, with a private link so I can share that link and anyone who clicks on it will have access to the video. I’m planning on doing one video with my son and we’re going to discuss child abuse from a child’s perspective.

Now – my son lives in a VERY safe home and we’ve done our absolute best to keep him safe, so I don’t think he’ll have stories to tell from personal experiences or not, but my hope is that we can discuss how he feels about child abuse even existing and his thoughts on how we can prevent it from happening.

Hopefully our group will be able to meet this week and I’m thinking of suggesting that we add some sort of “Resources” page on our blog so that people can have the National Child Abuse Hotline information, but then we could possibly give resources or contact information for different states so everyone could have easy access to that information.

Overall, I think we’re doing great! And as I said earlier, I can’t wait to see how things progress. I believe we’re doing great work to bring awareness to this social justice issue and we’ll have a solid project to present when we’re finished.

 

Collaborative Project – Week 1

by Tameya Robinson

For our group collaborative project, my partner and I are focusing on child abuse and maltreatment. We chose this topic because we’ve both had experience with this issue. We know that we won’t be able to completely eradicate child abuse on a large scale given the amount of time that we’ve been given, but we really want to bring awareness to the issue. My partner Mary and I met on Monday (11/2/2020) to discuss our topic and create a plan so we could begin moving forward. After some discussion, it was decided that Mary would be the “leader” since she has done a project/portfolio for Dr. Kilborn in a few previous classes so she has more experience that I do. Since Mary agreed to be the group leader, she set up our group blog and we’ll being posting in it on a weekly basis. My hope is that we can meet sometime next week and schedule weekly meetings going forward so we can get some type of momentum going. We’re both very strong communicators so we’ve have our Zoom meeting, talked through, email and through the group discussion section on D2L.

Thankfully, Mary and I are both tech savvy so we’ve already set up our Twitter and Instagram pages for our social media campaign. Mary has already posted the first Instagram post, so that’s a good start. We both have access to both platforms so we can get more postings done that way. We’ve agreed that we both will do 2 videos a piece and I might suggest that we make one additional video together – just to be on the safe side. We’re still in the brainstorming stage, but I think with our work ethics and innovative spirits, we’ll be able to create a compelling and informative social campaign for this collaborative project.

How Do We Imagine The Process Of Change?

by Tameya Robinson

Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect
Strategy Approach
Strengthen economic supports to families
  • Strengthening household financial security
  • Family-friendly work policies
Change social norms to support parents and positive parenting
  • Public engagement and education campaigns
  • Legislative approaches to reduce corporal punishment
Provide quality care and education early in life
  • Preschool enrichment with family engagement
  • Improved quality of child care through licensing and accreditation
Enhance parenting skills to promote healthy child development
  • Early childhood home visitation
  • Parenting skill and family relationship approaches
Intervene to lessen harms and prevent future risk
  • Enhanced primary care
  • Behavioral parent training programs
  • Treatment to lessen harms of abuse and neglect exposure
  • Treatment to prevent problem behavior and later involvement in violence

One major way I would measure success would be by the decreasing number of child abuse cases and the overall response/follow up once a report has been given.

How Do We Imagine A Better World?

by Tameya Robinson

What Are We FIGHTING FOR?

When thinking about irradiating child abuse and maltreatment, we have to believe that there is a better world than the one we’re currently experiencing. We’re fighting for the safety of children, not just outside the home, but INSIDE the home as well. We’re fighting for children to have the support, protection and backup to effectively, quickly and efficiently deal with all reports of child abuse. We are fighting for a better world where children can be children, instead of objects, pets, slaves or servants. And we’re fighting to prevent the abuse from happening in the first place.

What Are We FIGHTING AGAINST?

We’re also fighting against child maltreatment – Child maltreatment is behavior toward a child that is outside the norms of conduct and entails substantial risk of causing physical or emotional harm. Four types of maltreatment are generally recognized: physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse (psychologic abuse), and neglect [1]. We’re fighting against child trafficking – the recruitment, intimidation, transit, relocation, concealing or receipt of children under the age of 18 with the intent of exploitation, and includes sex and labor trafficking.  We’re also fighting against child pornography – Child pornography is a form of child sexual exploitation. Federal law defines child pornography as any visual depiction of sexually explicit conduct involving a minor (persons less than 18 years old).  Images of child pornography are also referred to as child sexual abuse images [2].

[1] https://www.merckmanuals.com/professional/pediatrics/child-maltreatment/overview-of-child-maltreatment#:~:text=Child%20maltreatment%20is%20behavior%20toward,psychologic%20abuse)%2C%20and%20neglect.

[2] https://www.justice.gov/criminal-ceos/child-pornography

Social Justice Topic – Child Maltreatment

by Tameya Robinson

As a mother of an 11-year-old, an aunt to multiple nieces and nephews and a godmother to 2 additional children I can honestly say that children hold a very special place in my heart. Having raised a child from birth I honestly can’t understand why anyone would mistreat an innocent child, especially parents or adults period. It’s obvious that an adult has control and the physical upper hand when it comes to children, so for anyone to take advantage of that is disgusting and beyond comprehension. This social justice topic is important to me, because I’m a mother, I was once a child and I know what mistreatment feels like and I would never put that evil on another child no matter what.

I believe this is a topic that needs to keep being talked about and exposed. With everything that’s going on in the world today, it’s easy to forget about a ground of humans that can’t stand up for themselves or speak out against their abusers in their youth. If you have never been abused or mistreated as a child, this topic may not be at the top of your social injustice list, but for those of us that have experienced it – it’s a part of your life that you never forget. According to the CDC, it’s predicted that 1 in 7 children in the US has experienced child abuse and/or neglect in the past year [1].

I plan on sharing a few personal stories of what I experienced as well as some stories of family and friends that have had to endure child maltreatment. Now I recognize that child maltreatment looks differently and everyone’s story isn’t the same; but I feel that survivor stories are imperative for the child that is currently dealing with maltreatment and abuse so they know that things can get better. This paper will certainly discuss multiple aspects of child abuse and maltreatment. My hope is that this discussion will continue to gain traction, exposure, and more laws will be created to protect our children – because they’re not objects or pets, they are precious humans that depend on adults to protect and love them, not abuse them.

 

[1] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Child Abuse & Neglect: Fast Facts.” Accessed July 31, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/childabuseandneglect/fastfact.html

Child Maltreatment – Personal Account

by Tameya Robinson

My father was a nice man and you could tell that he loved his family, and while he wasn’t a mean man all the time, he had an extremely bad temper mixed with severe anger problems. As a child, I never really knew how my actions would make him feel so I often walked on eggshells, because I never knew how he’d react. I can recall one specific time when I had gone swimming with a friend of mine, and I don’t think I told him where I was going. Now this was before parents sent their children with phones, so he didn’t have any way to get in contact with me.

When my friend’s mom brought me home, I remember my mom was so relieved to see me, because she was so worried. My dad, on the other hand, wasn’t pissed and you could tell because he was redder than red. He yelled at me and told me to go to my room, so I did as he demanded. Now I understand that he was angry and was probably worried, but I didn’t fully understand how upset he was until he came into my room. All I can remember was him yelling me and telling me how stupid I was and how lucky I was that I was girl otherwise he would’ve beat me like I was a boy. I was crying hysterically and all the sudden he punched me in my face. He hit me so hard that I fell backwards and hit the back of my head on my dresser. I remember screaming for my mom and as she came rushing in the room, to my aid, my dad just left the room unmoved by what he had done. Later we discovered that I had a huge bruise/scare on my face, and I was bleeding from this huge cut on my head.

This was only one of many instances where my father was physically abusive and I vowed that when I became a parent, I would NEVER put my child(ren) through such demining and inhumane treatment. Along with his occasional physical abuse, my father was also extremely verbally abusive. While all these experiences were traumatic at the time, I’ve been able to grow beyond it and I’ve become a more compassionate and loving parent because of it, and I refuse to sit back and let anything that happen to my son, my future children or any other child – regardless if they’re my child or not.