Nominations Open For Child Abuse Prevention Awards In April

Nominations are open for the 2024 Child Abuse Prevention Awards. LaChez English with the Oklahoma State Department of Health joined News 9 to talk about preventing child abuse.

“This prevention is important because with primary prevention, which is what we focus on, we really work with our communities and families to ensure that they have supports in place before abuse occurs,” English said. “A lot of our programming at the community based level is to enhance and, and bolster what's already happening in the communities. And we help to fill in those gaps and supports where they need us the most.”

April is child abuse prevention month.

“We're going to be working with Potts Family Foundation, and a community in south central Oklahoma in the Ardmore area. And we're going to be providing a community wide event there. And we also have the promotion of Blue Ribbon trees, Penn walled gardens on April the 10th will be Oklahoma wears blue where we try to promote everyone to wear blue for the for child abuse prevention,” English said. “What I wanted to talk about today was the big event, the big event, which is our Child Abuse Prevention Award Ceremony, which will be April 23, at the Oklahoma state Capitol.”

There are eight different categories that are going to be presented. To learn more about the awards or to nominate someone, click here.