FOUNTAIN VALLEY : Cook to Stop Giving Child Abuse Talks

Laurann Cook is giving up her teaching role after 11 years of presenting a program on the dangers of molestation, abuse and abduction to city schoolchildren.

Cook, a City Council member, gave her last presentations of the city-sponsored Child Abuse Resistance Education (CARE) program Thursday to classes of third- and fifth-graders at Roch Courreges Elementary School.

Over the past decade, Cook has spent more than 400 hours a year talking to tens of thousands of youngsters in kindergarten through eighth grade.

“I have put in so much time, love and devotion, it will be hard to leave,” she said. “Eleven years is a long time, but I have never regretted one moment or begrudged the time I have given to it. I feel it’s time to move on to other commitments.”

Cook said no one has stepped forward to replace her and is hoping another volunteer will take over the program. But if a replacement is not found by the next school year, she will continue to teach until someone else takes over, she said.

Cook, who is married and has two daughters, founded the program in 1983 after becoming alarmed by the number of child abuse and molestation cases in the city.

“It wasn’t a topic that was addressed. It was a closet issue,” she said.

Cook received support from Fountain Valley, Ocean View and Garden Grove Unified school districts to teach the course in their schools. Today she reaches more than 5,000 children annually with the program.

“The program is about educating children of the community on how to stay safe,” she said. Cook’s message to her pupils: “You keep telling someone until you’re believed. And remember, if you’re ever a victim, it’s never your fault.”

The program is presented in schools with the cooperation and participation of the Police Department. Officers make the presentations with Cook at the city’s 15 public schools.

Officer Jim Manton, one of seven officers involved, said creating awareness about molestation and abuse is important.

“I don’t think the topic is discussed at home and it needs to be brought up by someone,” he said. The program provides a way in which children can confide in someone and seek help, he added.

One year Cook referred 20 reports of abuse, she said, though in other years she has fielded fewer complaints that merited her contacting authorities.

Since she originated the program, a number of arrests have grown from these presentations, though most often she does not know what happens after she files a report with the authorities.

Sometimes a child might listen to the presentation, she said, but not decide to talk to a teacher about it until later.

“They really need the encouragement . . . that it’s OK to tell,” Manton said.

Teachers also consider the program valuable.

“It’s the kind of thing that is uncomfortable for kids to talk about,” said Linda Shea, a fifth-grade teacher at Courreges. “(The program) brings it up to an awareness level where a student would get the nerve to tell someone about it.”

The program, however, has required a large commitment of time and energy, which Cook says she no longer can give.

“I have done it because I genuinely care for children,” she said.