Florida State shooting FSU vigil student union
One by one students walked up to a row of flowers near the student union before huddling with friends to reflect.
Everything about the Gulf Coast Kid’s House is designed to soothe, comfort and lend a sense of safety to children who have suffered physical, sexual and mental abuse and trauma. Scared and scarred by horrible abuse at the hands of, most often, someone the child knows, it is a caring, compassionate haven for the innocent hearts that have been abused and physically and emotionally hurt.
Yet, Gulf Coast Kid’s House offers a calming environment. There are no bold primary colors that sometimes overstimulate children. There are earth tones and warm pastels. The grownups who serve the children there wear casual clothes, so as to appear friendlier and less imposing. There are bookshelves and toys and murals and art in nearly every room, so the children always are surrounded by a sense of concern and compassion.
Even in the most vulnerable spot for the children, the examination room where their injuries are looked at and documented, most everything is designed to give these victimized children some sense of peace and escape, such as butterflies on the ceiling above the exam table where the children are looked at and calming light features that the children themselves can control.
One in nine children in Escambia County suffer abuse, according to GCKH. The organization helps about 3,000 children a year who have been victims of abuse.
“There’s nothing we do here that hurts a child,” said Stacey Kostevicki, executive director of the nonprofit child advocacy center on 12th Avenue that provides services and support to child abuse victims in Escambia County. “There are no shots, we never hold a child down. It’s just to document any injuries and provide an opportunity to a child to talk to a medical professional about their body.”
April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month, and the Gulf Coast Kid’s House has been involved with a host of activities designed to inform the public about the vast number of child abuse cases in the county and country, but also to raise funds to support the nonprofit’s mission to protect and serve children.
GCKH will host its inaugural Blue Gala, a swanky cocktail-style fundraiser for its essential services and operation, on April 30 at Culinary Productions, 201 E. Wright St. Tickets are $100 and available at gulfcoastkidshouse.org. The event’s presenting sponsor is Sandy Sansing Dealerships. The Blue Gala will offer heavy appetizers, beer and wine, live music and a brief program about GCKH. Those who work at GCKH will change out of their casual clothes they wear to put the children at ease into business or cocktail wear, which is requested of those who attend, as is a splash of blue since blue and the blue ribbon are symbols of child abuse awareness efforts.
On April 25, people are asked to participate in the 10th annual “Walk in My Shoes” awareness event beginning at 8 a.m. at Gulf Coast Kid’s House, 3401 N. 12th Ave. The annual event was started by former Florida Sen. Lauren Book, who as a child was a victim of sexual abuse. Book and other survivors make a 1,500-mile march across Florida each year to raise awareness of child abuse, and started this year in Key West on April 2. The walk concludes on April 30 with a march to Tallahassee ending on the steps of the Florida Capitol. Pensacola walkers are invited to join on a march to Panama City, walking for as long as they would like or are able.
In partnership with Uber, registered walkers will be given free rides back to their cars from wherever they end their walk, as long as they have downloaded the Uber app and have an account. For walk information, go to laurenskidswalk.org.
Other April events have included the ongoing Dine Out and Do Good program, where more than 20 various local restaurants, breweries and coffee shops are offering specialty “blue” products, with some proceeds going to GCKH. For a complete list, go to gulfcoastkids.house.org/events/dineoutdogood/.
“Our community has always been amazing with its support,” Kostevicki said. “We couldn’t exist without the community.”
GCKH began in 2004 when community members pushed for a children’s advocacy center that could serve as a “one-stop shop” where all the various agencies needed to intervene and investigate on behalf of a child could operate under one roof, allowing better communication between the agencies and offering abused children a more comforting environment than a courthouse or a spare interview room.
Agencies that operate at GCKH include the Florida Department of Children and Families, Child Protection Team and Office of the State Attorney.
GCKH also facilitates a sexual trauma recovery group for adults who were victims of abuse when they were children.
“That’s important because if adults were sexually abused as children and never received the help they need, then their children won’t get a healthy parent,” Kostevicki said. She said that group has more trouble receiving community support as most contributors, understandably, focus on the children’s needs.
After all, the children’s needs are what the GCKH is all about. And the organization and its people will do whatever it takes to not only assist a child, but comfort that child during most excruciating, often numbing times, including those when children are being medically examined for abuse or interviewed about abuse.
Sometimes, they have to bring in the big dog – that’s Tucker, a 4-year-old adorably loving Golden Retriever, who even has his own business card with his title of Specialized Therapy Dog on the front with his picture.
“I always tell the story of how the FBI was interviewing a child here, and it was a various serious case,” said Barbie Valletto, GCKH clinical coordinator who shares her office with good-natured Tucker. “She would not talk. She would not even say her name.”
Valletto was asked to bring Tucker into the room, hoping that might soothe the traumatized girl a bit.
“Tucker had never been in a forensic interview before,” she said. “But when he came in, well, after that she talked for 45 minutes.”
Sometimes, Tucker is able to coax a smile out of a child who has been abused, no easy or meaningless feat.
“We’re extremely child-focused,” said Rachel Smith, GCKH Outreach & Events specialist. “We try to be child friendly as well. You greet children with smiles and try to build rapport with them right away. But before Kid’s House, they had to go to all these different, scary places that aren’t meant for kids.”
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