Child-Abuse Program Supporters Rally

Dozens of state programs are targeted for budget cuts this year, but none has rallied more defenders than a program sponsored by Los Angeles Assemblywoman Maxine Waters that trains children to guard against sexual abuse.

Supporters of the Child Abuse Prevention Training Act--ranging from police chiefs to educators--have inundated state offices with phone calls and letters, urging Gov. George Deukmejian to reinstate the program’s $10.1-million budget.

About two dozen parents and children, chanting “save the children,” rallied in the Capitol on Thursday to support the act, which has educated 3.7 million California children since its inception in 1984.

“We’ve received more phone calls on this issue than any other,” said Cindy Katz, assistant director in the state Department of Finance. “About half of our correspondence” has related to the program, she said.

The child-abuse program provides grants to local school districts and nonprofit organizations to carry out training that uses role playing and other techniques to instruct children how to avoid becoming the victims of physical and sexual abuse.

Faced with a $3.6-billion budget shortfall, Deukmejian earlier in the year deleted funding for many state programs, including child-abuse prevention training. Last Friday, the governor agreed to reduce his budget-cutting plan by $60 million. One of the programs he promised to reinstate was a $10-million effort administered by the Department of Social Services to counsel the victims of child abuse.

Supporters of the Waters act were outraged that Deukmejian agreed to fund child-abuse counseling but not prevention. “The money to fund the (prevention) program would be far less than to investigate victims of abuse,” said Kim Swartz, whose daughter was abducted two years ago in the San Francisco Bay Area. “If my daughter had this training, she would have been far more aware of the potential danger of someone approaching her.”

One beneficiary is the Los Angeles Unified School District. Its 10-year-old program--now operating in 152 of the district’s 414 elementary schools--has won strong support from observers including police officers and psychiatrists.

In the lobbying effort to put child-abuse training back into the budget, the most prominent advocate has been Waters, a Democrat who is a powerful member of the Assembly’s budget-writing committee.

“There’s a lot of pressure on the governor,” said Stan Di Orio, an aide to Waters. “This is the only comprehensive child-abuse training program in the nation.”

The Deukmejian Administration responds that, in a year of tough budget choices, the program is not the highest priority. “There are other child-abuse programs out there or the schools can fund” such programs themselves, Katz said.

Times education reporter Jean Merl contributed to this story.