Candace McCaffrey began her career as many people do – using any opportunities she could find to gain experience. This led her somewhere she didn’t expect – Bethesda, Inc., a Norman non-profit that provides counseling for child victims of sexual abuse.
McCaffrey: I was working at the community mental health center, and one of the original organizers, I guess, asked me if I wanted to co-lead one of the sex offender groups. I was young, needed experience, said yes.
That was in 1981. McCaffrey counseled at Bethesda for several years, and went on to be the director for 20 years. She’s been serving on the board of directors since she retired. She’s seen a lot of change in an organization that serves some of Oklahoma’s most vulnerable.
McCaffrey: When Bethesda first started, it was conceived of as a program that would address all the issues of family sexual abuse, which meant they also treated very select non-violent sexual abusers. So that made for a different program, and different programming, because we never had them in the agency at the same time and all that kind of stuff.
The offender program was eliminated in the early 2000s, and Bethesda now focuses all its resources on children who have suffered abuse and their families. Those children, McCaffrey says, keep getting younger.
McCaffrey: But one of the biggest things that always has been interesting to me, when we first started we mostly saw teenage girls, in terms of the kids we were seeing. So that’s early ‘80s. and as time went on, the age of the client has gotten younger and younger and younger and younger. That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t happening before. That’s not really a change in my mind with how offenders are offending, but we’re doing a better job at talking about sexual abuse and children speaking out about sexual abuse.
Changing attitudes and awareness have helped children and families face abuse earlier and earlier since the early ‘80s. And the time between abuse and relief can make a big difference.
McCaffrey: Obviously if you endure something like that for seven years as opposed to fairly quickly, if it unfortunately happens, we know there’s a big difference psychologically of what the impact of that is going to be.
Bethesda is the only agency of its kind in Oklahoma. It’s freestanding, independent, and provides counseling to victims and their families free of charge, regardless of income or any other factors.
McCaffrey: The philosophy basically is they’ve suffered enough and their family’s suffered enough, that we would not feel comfortable turning any child down because of an inability to pay.
Bethesda is funded by groups including United Way and the Oklahoma Department of Human Services, but its independence from a larger organization and a government agency is important to board member Jane Purcell.
Purcell: I think, you know, by not being part of a state agency, it’s, it remains independent, and therefore it doesn’t get pulled away from its primary focus of serving children who’ve been victims of abuse. I think that would be true of saying why it should be independent of other organization, because if you become involved in other aspects, the potential of you to lose your focus, your mission, is a challenge.
The children are the priority at Bethesda, for their own wellbeing as well as that of the community. Laura Munson is the president of the board of directors and a licensed professional counselor. She says the therapy helps children heal and affects not only the child, but also the people around them.
Munson: Because it’s, abuse is a problem that affects everybody, whether or not it’s directly impacting someone’s family, it does impact the community as a whole. Something that, as these things happen to our children, it does impact them becoming adults, it impacts their families, it impacts all their friends, everyone who cares about them. It can impact their productivity, whether at school or at work as they grow up, so it’s something that has a very direct impact on the whole community, so it’s something that people need to be aware of and we need to be looking to, to stop this kind of thing from happening and to help those who this has happened to.
Munson says abuse is cyclical – victims of abuse are more likely to become abusers in the future. The best way to break that circle is to stop it abuse before it happens. For the last five years, Bethesda has focused its resources not only on treatment, but also on prevention.
McCaffrey: Because we’re tired of hearing the statistics on how frequently this happens to kids. We have a young woman who spends 20 hours a week going into the schools and doing a prevention program with elementary children. And it’s a great, not-scary, I don’t’ think they even say sexual abuse, it’s just personal boundaries, and identifying good touch and bad touch and stuff like that. Again, a fun program, so the kids really like it. And I’m just very personally heartened and hopeful that we can build on that particular program in particular to do more and more of the prevention work that we know can be done.
McCaffrey says prevention is more complicated than educating children, though.
McCaffrey: Prevention is really difficult with sexual abuse, for a variety of reasons. One is that most sexual abuse happens in families, so it’s hard to, it’s easier to say ‘don’t’ talk to a stranger’ but you can’t say ‘don’t talk to any male in the family.’ You know.
But Bethesda is working tirelessly to promote prevention and treat victims here in Oklahoma. And the reason they do it is simple: It’s all about the kids.
McCaffrey: Any progress made with a child is rewarding to me. I don’t care why they come in. So no matter what the subject matter is, kids having a chance to take those developmental steps unimpeded as best they can is something I like to be a part of, so.
Madeline Stebbins, Assignment Radio.
