In the wake of last week’s child abuse charges against 32-year-old Meghan Bratcher, where law enforcement said she took her four-month-old child to the emergency room following months of alleged physical abuse, CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocates) of Ohio Valley Executive Director Rosemary Conder said it’s time for the community to — not just talk about the event — but take action.
Conder and CASA Program Coordinator Ashley Evans-Smith said this occurrence of child abuse has rocked Daviess County, and though both CASA staff members deal with abuse and neglect against children on a daily basis, the first-degree assault Bratcher inflicted on her child was more severe than most, they said.
And while it’s easy to judge, condemn and even hate the mother for the admitted physical abuse against her child, Conder and Evans-Smith said the underlying issue of abuse and neglect against a child always stems from something deeper, and that it’s not only the fault of the mother, but, to some degree, everyone.
“We don’t know that she didn’t come from an abusive childhood. We don’t know what the relationships with the men in her life have been like,” Conder said. “This is an opportunity for our community to say, ‘How can we prevent this? What can we do?’ We always need volunteers [at CASA], but we’re after the fact [of abuse]. Where we go to school, where we go to church, encouraging our legislators to put the money behind those programs are how we can address the abuse and neglect in our community.”
People become paralyzed after hearing stories like Bratcher’s about abuse and neglect, Conder said. They might feel like it’s not their business, or that they don’t want to get involved. For many, it’s so overwhelming, it’s easier to turn a blind eye. But should people be more involved when they hear these stories? According to Conder, the answer is yes.
While CASA steps in during the aftermath of abuse and neglect, is there a missing link in Owensboro that should focus on safety for the beginning stages of a child’s life? Conder and Evans-Smith said the resources are there — such as the Kentucky Health Access Nurturing Development Services (HANDS) program, but the community’s education and support of programs like these are what’s needed to make those resources count.
Volunteers and workers are also key to making HANDS, CASA, SparkODC, Girls Inc., the Boys & Girls Club, homeless shelters and others reach their potential. People from Owensboro and Daviess County have to do more than raise their eyebrows in judgement — they have to participate, the two said.
“There’s not enough HANDS workers to get to all these families,” Conder said. “Poverty, substance abuse, mental illness are all factors in child abuse, but the ultra-wealthy abuse their kids too. We are lacking parental education in handling stress. Could even a church group have come in and said, ‘We will mentor you and bring food to new babies?’ It’s almost another set of eyes and ears to identify an issue. A lot of new moms, and moms who don’t have a stable environment themselves — they don’t know how to be a parent, and so they don’t know they need help. They don’t know it’s not normal. So by the time they react and abuse the baby, they’ve already gotten to that critical point.”
Conder said incidents like the abuse of Bratcher’s child require a call to action from the community, one that focuses on a multitude of local issues, including gaps in services. One thing individuals can certainly do to help abused — or potentially abused — children is to always alert authorities or a hotline when abuse is suspected.
It’s against the law in the state of Kentucky to not report suspected child abuse, Conder said.
Pediatricians often report abuse, but not everyone gets the same quality healthcare, and abuse isn’t always as easy to detect as one might think. A baby’s bones heal quickly, Conder said. A doctor might see a child for 10-15 minutes at a visit, but it’s easy to believe a parent who says their child is napping when, in reality, the child is suffering brain damage from abuse.
A child abuse case like Bratcher’s affects everyone in the community — whether they deal with the case hands-on or read about it in the news, the CASA officials said. The negative energy that comes with reading about this tragedy could be made positive through meaningful acts and educating oneself, they said.
“[The Bratcher case] impacts so many people directly — not only the parents and children in this case, but there are social workers working it directly, doctors who are working it directly, the judge and court who are working it directly, journalists and the media who are covering this and being immersed in it, over and over,” Evans-Smith said. “Without somewhere to put that energy, we’re losing an opportunity to affect change in the community.”
Conder said CASA is in no way making excuses for Bratcher’s behavior, but that they aren’t condemning her either. The blame doesn’t lie with the mother alone, she said.
“Our meth epidemic is affecting the families, and it’s making parents unable to raise their children in a safe environment,” Conder said. “As a community, we’d want to put things in place to support her. Did she have prenatal care? Did she have a follow-up? Someone who’s had a child die in the past needs mental health therapy for that reason alone.”
Evans-Smith agreed, adding that parents who’ve lost children in the past are at a much higher risk for postpartum depression after having another child.
Evans-Smith said a lot of providers will questions about miscarriages and deaths of previous children, but for those who don’t get consistent, quality healthcare during and after a pregnancy, a provider may not know to ask those things, and they may not follow up.
Both Evans-Smith and Conder said they don’t believe abusive parents are purely evil people — almost always, there’s a backstory that leads a parent to physically, mentally or emotionally abuse their child.
“She got here somehow,” Evans-Smith said. “This didn’t just happen out of nowhere.”
Conder and Evans-Smith said it’s ineffective for society to judge Bratcher and her family without taking into account the multitude of different circumstances that could have led her to be a totally different mother than what’s expected.
“It’s really ineffective to judge that family against my family because they haven’t had the same set of circumstances I’ve had,” Evans-Smith. “The anger people feel about this situation is completely justified, but if I choose to only view them through the lens of my family, then I’m really missing an opportunity to create change, and think about this, and serve the community.”
Evans-Smith said something as small as offering to help a parent in the check-out line by consoling a screaming child or helping them unload groceries can greatly decrease the oftentimes unseen stress levels that build up in new and veteran parents alike. A gesture like that could be the difference between a parent who blows up at their child later, or a parent who walks away feeling gratitude for someone else’s act of kindness.
As Conder said, it takes a village to create change and prevent tragedies like this one from occurring again.
“We need legislation, we need funding,” she said. “The Family First Act is providing that. As a community, we need to stand up and say, ‘We want to do something.’ These are tragic events that can be prevented if we educate and bring awareness and get people involved. We have to figure out a way to break the cycle of abuse and neglect. We can’t fix the whole world, but we can do something to help Owensboro and Daviess County.”
Conder said people often worry about calling law enforcement or hotlines when they hear of, see, or suspect child abuse because of two things: They don’t want to cause a child to be taken away from their family, and/or they don’t want to falsely accuse someone and get in trouble. But Conder said social workers do everything they can to address a possible issue while keeping a family together, and that nobody gets in trouble for falsely reporting a claim of child abuse.
Those who hear of, suspect or see child abuse in the local area can call 911 or make an anonymous report to the child abuse hotline by calling 1-877-597-2331.
