June’s Story

Every day a child walks through our doors and has their own story. While we start to find many similarities between cases, each child has their own version. Below is June’s story.

Imagine that your 9-year-old daughter came home from school crying, as she told you that her best friend was suddenly not attending school anymore. You hurt for your daughter who had worked so hard to make friends at the new school. You had been pleased when you met June at a school party that she was clearly smart, outgoing, and well-loved by all her classmates.

I’d like to tell you what you will probably never know about what happened to June.

June came to the Georgia Center for Child Advocacy after she told her teacher that she couldn’t stay still in her seat because of pain since her older step-brother had raped her. She had told her father earlier, but he just told her to “stop making up crazy stories like that.” June and her siblings went into a foster home immediately because her father had not protected them by reporting the suspected abuse. That was the last time June saw her best friend.

June’s older siblings were mean to her because they blamed her for having to leave their father. Without warning, June and her siblings were moved to a second foster home after only a month. June felt terribly alone. She cried every night and wondered it if would have been better never to have told her teacher what was happening at home. The other children at her new school could see no indication of the bright, outgoing child she used to be.

During this difficult time, June was coming to the Georgia Center for Child Advocacy for free therapy. She told her therapist about her sadness of not seeing her father. She expressed her sense of betrayal of her father as she grew to lover her foster father. She missed her friends from her old school. But it took a full year of coming to therapy for June to be able to talk about the sexual abuse. She felt ashamed- that all the bad things that happened were her fault. She was embarrassed. But the Center’s therapist was patient and reassuring. After 17 months working with June and her foster family, June had achieved all of her therapy goals and was able to view life through a more trusting lens. Her foster parents are planning to adopt her and her siblings, and her future is promising.

For every child like June, there are 9 others who never get help.

What if June had never told and the Center had never intervened? Could your daughter become a victim to June’s older stepbrother?