Child Abuse Center to Focus on Whole Family : Social Service: The head of an Antelope Valley facility says prevention is the long-term solution to the problem.

Carolyn Cunningham takes charge of the new Antelope Valley Child Abuse Center amid indications of the severity of the child abuse problem in the Antelope Valley:

* A Lake Los Angeles man was charged with murder last week in the beating death of his 4-year-old stepdaughter, whose mother was charged with child abuse for allegedly leaving the girl in his care despite the girl’s pleas that her mother stay home.

* The Los Angeles County Department of Children’s Services has approved the addition of seven sorely needed positions to bring its overworked Lancaster staff up to 39 workers, officials said.

* And a play about incest titled “Shattered Secrets” ran in Lancaster last weekend to educate residents and child welfare professionals about the grim legacy that sexually abused children carry into adulthood.

Cunningham, a 38-year-old clinical psychologist and former director of the child sexual abuse program of the Glendale Family Service Agency, says the privately funded center will represent a dramatic step forward in treatment and prevention of child abuse. She will begin hiring staff soon in hopes of opening to the public in December.

“It is a wonderful opportunity,” she said. “I’m impressed by the concept. Ideally, we will be focusing on the whole family. . . . The idea in the long range is not just to treat kids who have been abused but to prevent abuse.”

Cunningham was selected from about 20 applicants by the center’s board, a group of doctors, business people and local leaders who raised $300,000 over the last year to start the center.

The group reacted to statistics from the county, law enforcement agencies and schools showing child abuse is proportionately higher in the valley than in many urban, more densely populated communities. Experts attribute those numbers to the isolation of the high desert, the pressures on its many young working-class families and a willingness to report suspected abuse.

“People who abuse tend to isolate themselves,” Cunningham said. “But abuse is more obvious in isolated communities.”

The board chose Cunningham because of her well-rounded background, said Palmdale psychiatrist John Beck, head of the selection committee. Cunningham has written two books on the subject and is a former Conejo Valley teacher and supervisor of a program for child offenders at Children’s Institute International in Los Angeles. She lives in Burbank.

Cunningham’s initial task will be to provide a setting in which the people who deal with child abuse--prosecutors, child-welfare workers, sheriff’s deputies and doctors--can combine efforts. That will benefit the victims because they can be interviewed and examined in one place at one time, Cunningham said, citing similar programs at the Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center in Palm Springs and the Stewart House in Santa Monica.

Jean McAndless, who supervises the county Children’s Services office in Lancaster, said: “It will be a resource for us. . . . It’s so much trauma for the child. All the different agencies will be able to make use of it.”

Since the shutdown of a small child abuse program at Antelope Valley Hospital Medical Center this summer, McAndless said, county workers have had to take some victims to hospitals as far as Harbor City for physical exams.

The center will provide parenting classes, therapy for victims and their families, and education about the legal system, Cunningham said. She also plans to set up a hot line for families experiencing stress.

Cunningham’s field is inherently tragic and unpleasant, but she said there are rewards.

“Adult offenders are victims who start abusing at 8, 9, 10 years old,” she said. “If you can stop them at that age, you can stop them. . . . When you work with little kids, you can see a lot of progress. You see good results.”