I opened my email at 5 a.m. Saturday – our two dogs forgot we sleep in on the weekend – to find a request for assistance from a longtime Support Center for Child Advocates volunteer attorney, about child siblings of his now-adult client. The younger children were living with a family friend after the death of their mother two years back. Now, the 7-year-old was found to have bruises on her eye and body, and had missed school for two weeks. Someone had left marks on her.
Unexplained bruises on a young child are often a prima facie sign of child abuse. A hospital visit and perhaps protective services investigations will follow. The family may return to the child welfare system, with all of its positive influences and negative effects. That experience will leave marks too.
