Eye on the Triangle

Jeanine Ikekhua 0:00
Hi, my name is Jeannie Ikekhua and I'm the Public Affairs Director at WKNC radio. On today's episode, you'll be hearing two stories. The first one will be Whitney news with your favorites Abbigail and Avery, and the next one is going to be an interview by one of our favorite editors Grace about child abuse prevention month

Grace Gidley 0:18
The views and opinions expressed during Eye on the Triangle do not represent WKNC or NC State student media.

Good evening rolling your dials currently tuned Eye on the Triangle on WKNC 88.1 FM HD one. I am Grace Gidley. On tonight's episode I Grace Gidley. I'm joined with Chris DeMars. And NC State alumna and the Director of Communications and Marketing at Prevent Child Abuse North Carolina to talk about child abuse prevention month, we discussed the many ways that one can get involved and be a connection to help prevent child abuse within the community. Stay tuned to Eye on the Triangle. Chris, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today.

Chris 1:08
Thank you so much for having me and prevent child abuse North Carolina on today grace

Grace Gidley 1:12
To start, can you tell me how child maltreatment is defined?

Chris 1:17
Sure, so child maltreatment is really any type of abuse or neglect, sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse of a child. So you know, it's not everything that can be seen physically on the body. Sometimes it's emotional, sometimes it's neglect not being able to go and see the doctor when they need to. So there's a bunch of different types of abuse. And luckily, we do have a free online training about the different types of abuse and how to see the signs of it and make a report for those different types of abuse.

Grace Gidley 1:57
What are a few of the basic warning signs to look out for?

Chris 2:01
Well, we definitely want to look for the obvious signs of physical abuse those you know, bruises and, you know, maybe even neglect being disheveled hair, or coming in wearing the same clothes multiple days in a row. But even just you know, retreating and not being super social or active when they're around other kids. And then another obvious sign is when a child interests you and tells you something is wrong or something's not right. You know, making sure that you listen. But the good thing too, that we know is that child maltreatment is 100% preventable and that's a little bit about what Prevent Child Abuse North Carolina focuses on with our Upstream approach to child maltreatment prevention.

Grace Gidley 2:50
Can you tell me a little bit more about that upstream approach that you just mentioned?

Chris 2:54
Absolutely. So prevent child abuse, North Carolina focuses on making sure that child maltreatment prevention is a priority in North Carolina. And we do that by making sure that all communities have the knowledge skills and resources they need to prevent child abuse and neglect at the local level. So we really believe that it can be prevented from ever occurring when every single adult plays a part, and all sectors in the community play a part. So you know, it's not about that family over there taking care of themselves and pulling themselves up by the bootstraps. We're talking about upstream approaches by investing in proven strategies, proven programs and proven policies that help strengthen families. Because when we do that, you know, we're helping and supporting that family in a holistic approach by surrounding that family with the support they need, by making sure they have housing over their head, transportation, to get to where they need to go to make sure that they have the economic supports and a stable job and, and quality, affordable childcare, to, you know, put their children in when they go to that job. So really just building up the supports in the community around every family, in every community of North Carolina. And that that really is our approach, just making sure that communities have that knowledge of child maltreatment prevention and how to make sure that that's in their communities and a part of that is the protective factors. Actually, that is pretty much all of it. The protective factors are super important. And that is one thing that we focus on the most is making sure to increase the protective factors that strengthen families and then therefore prevent child maltreatment from ever occurring in the first place.

Grace Gidley 5:00
Can you tell us a little bit about the connections matter and see initiative?

Chris 5:04
Absolutely. So we embarked on the connections matter North Carolina initiative back in, I believe 2019. The years have just kind of flown by recently. But it's really an initiative that focuses on adverse childhood experiences and educating the community about adverse childhood experiences, trauma, brain development, and resilience and what all of that means in developing healthy brains at any age. So we know that positive connections can help build strong brain connections. And when you have strong development, you're more likely to thrive, again at any age. So whether you're zero to 17, or you're a parent raising a child, or just a community member, who is just trying to give back and do their best in life, positive connections are critical to those healthy brain development. And that's one thing that we've seen kind of really struggle over the past two, two and a half years with COVID, and being so isolated from one another. And so that was a big push, and a big focus for Prevent Child Abuse North Carolina, is staying connected to those social supports, which is one of those protective factors that I was talking about before. Just having someone to lean on in times of need helps build resilience, and helps people cope and get through the really tough times. And I think that's, you know, one important thing that helped all of us during the past few years is having close friends to lean on and family who loves you and cares about you to lean on, when you're just having a bad day.

Grace Gidley 6:57
Yeah, and Prevent Child Abuse North Carolina partners with faith communities specifically through this initiative. Why is it so important to connect with these faith communities and congregations specifically?

Chris 7:08
Absolutely. So we know that faith communities provide so much more than just you know, their services, right? At their place of worship, they go out into the community, and they're, you know, a symbol of hope. They offer these positive connections throughout the week, not just on that one day that you might go in for fellowship, and they're a staple in their community. Faith communities really bring together all the different concrete supports that their community members need. And not just the community members like within their faith community, but the ones in their larger community. And they make sure that those social supports are accessible to families. So by providing, you know, food drives, or, you know, giving kids backpacks in time for going back to school, driving all of these concrete supports for parents in their community is one vital way that faith communities really help increase the protective factors that strengthen families and prevent child maltreatment. And we've been trying to connect the dots and let faith communities know that they are preventing child maltreatment before it ever occurs when they do host you know, activities like that throughout the year. Even if it's not their intention or their mission to prevent child maltreatment. They are doing it and so we're just trying to highlight that for faith communities and let them know that that's something that they can continue doing. And, you know, really advocate for that once they make that connection.

Grace Gidley 8:55
Yeah. Has the pandemic influence the risk of child maltreatment at all, over the past two years?

Chris 9:02
We, you know, in the beginning of the pandemic, we definitely thought that, you know, I mean, in general times of crisis puts families under great stress and that can lead to increases of child maltreatment or risk of child maltreatment. We know that, you know, when families are socially isolated and don't have those social connections, that increases stress that removes one of the five protective factors. We know that unemployment skyrocketed and we know that families didn't have access to some of those concrete supports like public transportation, and we all saw those lines of people, you know, miles long waiting to get food and the car lines picking up food. So we definitely worried about the risk for child maltreatment, the risk factors went up the protective factors seem to to go down a bit. And, you know, it seems that the reports of child maltreatment also went down. Our report meant most reporters are educators, law enforcement and the like emergency room, doctors and pediatricians, and people were not going out of their houses. So families were isolated. People weren't aware of, they weren't able to see the signs of suspected abuse or neglect to make a report. So it looks like, you know, abuse definitely could have occurred and just went unreported. But they're saying that, you know, reports may have stayed around the same or actually cases of child maltreatment. I think that that number is actually just not figured out yet and not determined. So I don't want to say but I will just say that the risk factors went up and protective factors went down. So we're just focusing now more than ever, on making sure that kids have someone they can trust, and have that caring connection that they can go to, if they needed to report abuse or neglect from over the past few years, and or just to make sure that we're building those connections and keeping them strong, so that abuse never has to occur.

Grace Gidley 11:29
April is Child Abuse Prevention Month, what are some ways listeners can be a connection and get involved this month?

Chris 11:37
Absolutely. So we're talking today on April 1, which is Wear Blue Day, National Wear Blue Day. And you know, even if you're listening to this, and it's not April 1 anymore, which is probably the case, you can still wear blue and participate by taking a photo and sharing with the #wearblueday2022 and #beaconnection. We're really driving our online awareness to spread the word of the important role that every single adult plays in building strong environments and strong relationships for families and children. So we also invite people to participate in our statewide webinar. It's basically a prevention 101 overview, called "ensuring strong foundations for children, learn the basics and take action" that will be held on Wednesday, April 20. And if you're like most people, and you've got zoom fatigue, the webinar will be recorded so that you can watch at any time and you don't have to attend necessarily in person. But that will be great for just a basic overview of what is primary prevention, what's secondary prevention and tertiary prevention, what does that mean? How to make a report of suspected abuse and neglect. And then, you know, we're gonna go over the protective factors and the importance of strong connections, and offer some ways that individuals can support children and families all year long. And then some other ways that folks can get involved is by participating in the #beaconnection, social media campaign. We just want people to identify their own unique role in amplifying the ways that we can support children and families. So like we mentioned, faith communities might not, you know, make, connect the dots on posting a food drive as being a child maltreatment prevention solution. But it is. So we would like for everyone to kind of identify what's one thing that they do, or have done that build strong families and strong communities, and share that on social media with the #beaconnection anytime throughout April. And then, you know, we encourage you to visit preventchildabuseNC.org to visit our online toolkit for Child Abuse Prevention Month, which has pre written social media posts, social media graphics, a zoom background, email signature, talking points, basically anything you could need for wanting to promote child maltreatment prevention in your community. And there's just a bunch more information and resources for school counselors, early care and education providers and faith communities as well.

Grace Gidley 14:46
And finally, you touched on this earlier a little bit, but why is it so important for the community to get involved and take on Child Abuse Prevention as their responsibility not only this month but also moving forward?

Chris 15:01
Well, we know that, as I said, before, you know, families, are, families can't just do it alone. You know, every family, everyone experiences stress at some times. And so we want to make sure that that family is surrounded by support and positive connections. Because if mom or dad or grandma, grandpa, whoever is caring for these children, you know, is having a rough patch and you know, maybe lost their job, or, you know, their car broke down, they can't get to where they need to go or take their child to the doctor. It's our responsibility as a community as a neighbor, as a friend, as an aunt or an uncle, to wrap ourselves around the families in our lives. It's really a community wide responsibility. That's one of our values and visions that prevent child abuse North Carolina. It, it's all of our responsibilities in putting these upstream policies and programs and solutions in place that are focused on science and proven to strengthen families, we really need to change the system, so that we're not spending $2 billion downstream in North Carolina on the consequences of child maltreatment, and instead invest that money upstream in these programs and policies that strengthen families so Child Abuse and Neglect never has to occur. And that can't happen if the community doesn't believe in it and understand that and that is, you know, why we're talking today and why you're listening today. It's all of our role and responsibility, and I really hope that everyone, you know, takes one task to recognize Child Abuse Prevention Month this April.

Grace Gidley 16:55
Thank you, again, so much for speaking with us today on Eye on the Triangle.

Chris 17:00
Thank you so much Grace.

Grace Gidley 17:02
For more information about child abuse prevention month or prevent child abuse North Carolina, resources can be found at Preventchildabusenc.org, reporting for Eye on the Triangle. This has been Grace Giddley. Thanks for listening.

Avery 17:18
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Eye on the Triangle. This is Avery, the news editor at technician and I'm here with

Abigail 17:27
Hi this is Abigail from technician. Also, I'm the assistant news editor.

Avery 17:33
And this is actually the last time we're going to have those titles because starting next week, Miss Abigail is going to be the news editor at technician very, very excited and proud of her. She's going to be great. And since I'm graduating, this is also going to be my last podcast. So I've had such a great time doing this weekly news with Abigail we have a blast. And yeah, very, very bittersweet.

Abigail 17:59
Yeah, it's gonna be so sad without her but maybe you guys can meet our new charges for next year.

Avery 18:05
Yep, we'll have some new news editors rolling up on the scene. Cool. Okay. Well, we're gonna go ahead and get started if you have never listened to this segment before, the way this works is Abigail and and I each have three news tidbits from around the triangle or NC State, and we just talk about them and get some live reactions, and we go back and forth. So let's roll.

Abigail 18:36
Okay, guys, so my first tidbit this week is about Mojoe's Burgers. If you live in Raleigh love burgers and you haven't been to Mojoe's yet, may I ask what you're doing right now? Mojoe's burger joint is a small little burger place on Glenwood Avenue across from Mellow Mushroom with an amazing selection of burgers and appetizers. They literally have options for everyone. They have regular burgers, turkey burgers, veggie burgers, bean burgers, and more. They have gluten free and whole wheat bun options and literally so many toppings that I've thought about listing, but there there was too many I couldn't do it. They also have what they call the Hall of Fame burger, which is a one pound Patty that if you finish it you become a Mojoe's Hall of Famer, and actually the way I decided to talk about this this week was that I was scrolling on Instagram and going through my stories, and I saw their story and three people I knew were on Mojoe's story, because one of their friends had just finished the Hall of Famer. So it is possible so maybe you guys should go and challenge yourselves. You never know what you can do out here. But Mojoe's greatness doesn't even stop at its burgers. Mojo is also has amazing appetizers, sides. They have wings, nachos, fried pickles, tater tots, bacon cheese fries and more. It's amazing. I want to go right now, and you should also.

Avery 20:09
Wow, I love some fried pickles. I just got really excited when you said that. But this is really cool. I've never heard of this. You know, excited to hear they have veggie burgers as a pescatarian. That is, you know, my jam. So very cool. I would love to see someone attempt to do this hall of fame. I don't know, I'm having trouble visualizing what a one pound patty is like.

Abigail 20:36
I have no clue.

Avery 20:37
Yeah, it's, I mean, I guess it sounds like a lot. But also it doesn't really sound like a lot to me.

Abigail 20:43
Yeah, I would like to see it to also do they have a veggie option for that?

Avery 20:47
Right? Because I want to be on the wall.

Abigail 20:50
Yeah, I wouldn't be on the wall. Let me do it.

Avery 20:53
So my first tidbit is kind of an update about student government. I talked about student government a few weeks ago, on the podcast, and now I'm gonna talk about it again. So this is also thanks to our future assistant news editor, Emily Vespa. She wrote an article about student government recently in the new elections. So go to the technician website to read that if you'd like to know more. But basically, student engagement was incredibly low this semester. According to Miles Calzini, the incoming student senate president, only 300 people voted out of the entire school 300 people. So usually they have around 4000 people vote each election, which is still pretty low, compared to the 37,000 students that are at NC State. So the fact that only 4000 vote usually is kinda low, but then 300 this election was crazy. And there was also only one contested race, so every other position ran unopposed. And out of 65 senate seats up for election, only 25 positions were filled so that's not great.

Abigail 22:09
No.

Avery 22:11
Yeah, not looking so good for student government. So upcoming student body, Vice President Timothy Reid said they're going to try to create more initiatives to increase student interest and engagement. And many officers say they don't think students understand the importance of student government and what roles they play. So like I talked about a little bit when I talked about student government before. Student Government is very involved in a lot of the things that happen at NC State, they take charge of important initiatives that directly impact students. They allocate money to different clubs. And so they, they're kind of working it behind the scenes. So it is important to vote, and also to run. There are a lot of positions open for the Senate. If you're interested, then I think you can reach out to the senate president and see about maybe getting a position. But yeah, student government is important.

Abigail 23:18
Yeah, for sure. I definitely didn't know until this year actually how important student government was. But I covered some of the Senate meetings and some of the other kind of SG things. And yeah, they do a lot more than you would think like they actually do have control over a lot of like the rules on campus. And like you said initiatives and like money, like a lot of money, they get to literally fund, different things on campus so they're kind of a big deal, and it is really important. I will say I felt like the marketing for elections this year, was really not as good. I feel like freshman year there were signs and events everywhere during election season, and this year just wasn't a huge thing.

Avery 24:08
Yeah, I think I saw like one single sign. It was like in the Court of Carolinas, and that was it. And I remember being confused, because I was like, our elections happening? Like, why is this one sign? Yeah, so very important. Try to stay updated. Try to know who your senators are, and if you're at all interested, maybe reach out about getting involved yourself.

Abigail 24:33
For my second tidbit of the week, I have an update from a previous segment where I mentioned that researchers are catching sharks off the coast of the Carolinas, to find out if they breed there every year. Don't worry, it hasn't been like they haven't found that out for sure yet. But what they did find is that according to news and observer I may not be swimming in the ocean this summer because they found three huge great white sharks off the coast, the largest of the group being Mahone, who is 13 feet and 7 inches. For reference, I am 5'6 so he is literally two times longer than me and weighs 1,700 pounds. The other two were 12 ft and 10 ft, they were all pinged about a week ago, April 9, and 6. And yeah, check out News and Observer to learn more about Osearch who is like the people doing the breeding project, and about the lovely sharks that will be haunting my beach trips for the rest of the summer.

Avery 25:38
Okay, so last week, me and Abigail had a conversation and I think maybe I jinxed us, but I was talking about how we had never come up with the same tidbit.

Oh, my God.

I had this for this week. Yeah. And I got it specifically because I know Abigail was like. So that's crazy. But yeah, I remember reading this and just being like, oh, that's casual. We just got a 13 foot great white shark off of NC. And then I also saw like a satellite picture of it. So well, it wasn't like a picture of actually, I did see I think it was a picture of the shark. And like it was huge. But I saw a satellite picture of like, where it was in relation to the beach. And I feel like when you say like, oh, it was like off the coast that sounds like that could be kind of far out off the coast. It was close to the shore.

Abigail 26:27
I was about to say in the article, they gave a town which I meant to put up here and I definitely forgot. But it's literally like close enough to where they could say it's by the city. And I was like, ok, not going there.

Avery 26:38
Yeah, it's like, I think it was Fort Fisher. And it was, I mean, I still think it was farther out than most people swim, but it was closer than what you might expect. And it did say like that the reason it was so close to the shore was probably because there's no one in the water right now, so if there are people splashing around, I mean, they don't just come and attack people on the shore, usually. I mean you could be the first so yeah, um, wow, this is kind of funny that our last episode, We finally did it, we finally had the same one. But um, yeah, kind of scary. At least it's not a megalodon.

Abigail 27:20
Thank God. Well, I don't know. Would that better? They could just swallow me whole.

Avery 27:25
That's true. But if they swallowed you a hole you would like not die right away. Do you ever think about that? Like if you were swallowed by a whale? Like a huge whale like you wouldn't die right away, like you would like be inside of it and I mean you you would probably die pretty quickly, but like suffocating or whatever, but you wouldn't just die. I would rather be like chomped.

Abigail 27:46
Really?

Avery 27:47
Yeah, because then it's like at least

Abigail 27:49
If you're like suffocating you'd pass out. I don't know you would still probably pass out

Avery 27:54
If they like bite, if they like bite your head off. Like that's quick. Anyway, real talk with Abigail and Avery. How would you rather die? Being swallowed whole by Megalodon or being chopped up by a great white?

Abigail 28:10
These are the important questions is true.

Avery 28:14
Okay, so this is going to be my last tidbit because I have the same one. So just two for me today. And this one is also courtesy of the news and observer. So at Moore Square Magnet Middle School, a falconry demonstration went awry. Basically a falconer came in to do two presentations to two groups of students in the schools gyms and I think he brought like four different birds with them. So the first presentation went well, but during the second one, a large red tailed hawk named Henry got loose. Apparently it said he was on a leash but then he got loose so I don't really understand that and then he flew up into the rafters and parked it in the gym. And they were trying to get them down for a while and couldn't so the falconer left to go get a pigeon to use as bait to get the bird down. And then this is the kicker, he brings the pigeon back in somehow the pigeon also gets away from him and flies up into the rafters also, so did we not only have one bird, but two birds chillin up in the rafters of the school. So the birds were left there overnight. They closed the doors to the gym and put notes on it telling the janitors not to go in there. And they were not able to be retrieved for two days. They spent two full days trying to get these birds down.

Abigail 29:40
Oh my god.

Avery 29:42
Yeah it's- the story is chaotic. Students were coming up with ideas like shooting at it with water guns, as well as a kid shimmying up a pole to get it. I can just imagine a middle schooler saying that like what if I get up onto the rafters and like grab it.

Abigail 29:57
I can't believe they didn't actually try.

Avery 30:00
I know, all of these ideas were met with firm no's. Finally the falconer was able to learn Henry down on the fourth day, I think it was because he got hungry. And like they realized that that's where his food was gonna come from. And then it said, they also got the pigeon down. It didn't explain how but I'm just like, how are- how are we letting an animal like the birds get away from us? He's like a falconer. And not only did the hawk get away, but the pigeon got away. He needed to learn the hawk

Abigail 30:35
Two times? Two times sir?

Avery 30:38
So funny. I just thought the story was hilarious. And I can just imagine like PE being, not canceled, but having to do different things for PE because Oh, the gym, we got a hawk on there. We can't be in the gym.

Abigail 30:52
They should have had field trips, let's go see the hawk while it's here.

Avery 30:58
Anyway, that was my last tidbit of all time. So that's a good one to end on.

Abigail 31:05
Yeah. For my last tidbit, I am going to be talking about Easter egg hunts for adults. Actually, it's for like ages five and up. But like, it's more-

Avery 31:19
Im five and up.

Abigail 31:20
Exactly. So the City of Raleigh has curated a historical Easter egg hunt where you can find 10 Giant hidden eggs at some of Raleigh's historical locations around the city. Some locations include the board and building house. Yeah, boarding building at Fred Fletcher Park, City of Raleigh Museum, John Chavis Carousel and more. I love a good Easter egg hunt. But lately, I've realized how far the ground is than it used to be. And the thought of running around and bending over to collect 30 different eggs filled with cheap candy hurts my back to think about. So being able to stare at a giant egg at a comfortable distance that doesn't require much strain sounds like a way better idea to me. Also as a Gen Z-er, or that spends too much time on social media, it would probably benefit my joints and my mind to take a trip around the city and get out for a bit. A nice walk through downtown would be a great way to do that. Not to mention a nice outing usually ends with good food or good coffee, especially around downtown. So this Easter egg hunt sounds like a great time.

Avery 32:30
Nice. Did it say how big the giant easter eggs are like when I hear that? I'm like what does that mean?

Abigail 32:36
I also wanted to know I'm like, are we talking about like scary big or kind of? Like? I think it has to be big enough to have words on it, I think because there's like you're supposed to collect highlighted words that are on the eggs to solve a puzzle. I don't know.

Avery 32:53
Oh that's really cool. I kind of want to do that. And so are they all downtown?

Abigail 32:57
Yes. I think well, for the most part, there was like Pullen park. And I think there was like two that might not be downtown. But I think most of them are downtown.

Avery 33:07
Gotcha. Well, that's super fun. That sounds like a really fun thing to do. You know, when you get older, you just have so much going on in your life. And sometimes it's nice to revert back to childhood and an Easter egg hunt. It's like the perfect way to do that. I haven't gone on an Easter egg hunt since you know, ages.

Abigail 33:29
Yeah people will laugh at me now if I try to go on one.

Avery 33:32
Right. So Wow. Very cool. Well, that is it for our weekly news this week. This podcast has been super fun for me to do with Abigail every week. And I know she's gonna have a fun time doing it next semester with the new assistant news editors. And yeah, it's just it's been a great time.

Abigail 33:53
It was a great time. I've had so much fun. And I will see you guys next time. Thank you so much.

Avery 33:59
Alright, for one last time. Bye.

Abigail 34:02
Bye. Rip headphone users.

Grace Gidley 34:09
That just about does it for this episode. This has been Grace Gidley for WKNC Radio. Thank you for listening. You can listen to more episodes at wknc.org/podcasts, and you can also tune in every Sunday at 6pm to hear new Eye on the Triangle episodes.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai