Mother of ‘Wyatt’s Law’ namesake teaches children on sexual-abuse prevention
Erica Hammel McLaughlin, who successfully pushed state lawmakers for passage of Wyatt’s Law to protect children from abusers, is now trying to protect children from illicit sexual contact through her work with Care House Macomb County.
The mother of 11-year-old Wyatt Rewoldt was hired last May as the Community Outreach and Prevention Coordinator for Care House and since last fall has been teaching hundreds of young children about “body safety” in presentations at elementary schools around the county.
“Working for Care House is absolutely a dream come true,” Hammel McLaughlin said. “It was always a dream of mine to be working in a field like this. Working for Care House and doing this kind of work is so fulfilling.”
Care House Executive Director Dorie Vazquez-Nolan said she recognized Hammel McLaughlin’s “passion and advocacy for preventing child abuse” when initially recruiting her to serve on the Care House Board of Directors, a position she had to leave to take the staff position.
“We’re thrilled to have her,” Vazquez-Nolan said. “I had admired her tireless efforts to get Wyatt’s Law passed and her active Wyatt the Warrior Facebook page and I knew Erica would do an amazing job getting some new prevention initiatives off the ground for us. Although our Board was sorry to lose her, we all agree that we are utilizing her talents in the best way.”
Care House added the position last year due to additional funding from
Children Trust Michigan, formerly known as the Michigan Children’s Trust Fund, Vazquez-Nolan said.
Hammel McLaughlin has conducted 66 presentations to over 1,000 children in Eastpointe Community Schools, South Lake Schools in St. Clair Shores and Van Dyke Public Schools in Warren.
She is teaching a program called ROAR, designed for children 4-8 years old, from pre-kindergarten through second grade. The program title is an acronym, with each letter representing the first word of the program’s four rules: “Remember, privates are private. Okay to say no. Always talk about secrets. Raise your voice and tell someone.”
Hammel McLaughlin decided to focus on the youngest
children first.
“The earlier you teach them the better,” she said. “My hope is that it stays with them.”
Young child victims of sexual abuse “don’t know what is happening to them. They don’t realize it’s not normal,” she said.
During the interactive presentation, Hammel McLaughlin deploys an illustration of a lion and uses props to demonstrate what are private parts.
“I know what I’m telling them they’re absorbing,” she said, by the answers children give at the start and end of the program. “It’s amazing how they are taking it in.”
The program “empowers them to say no to any touch,” she said. “It makes them aware and they learn something.”
It attempts to have children have three adults with whom they can confide in.
This is the only time for some children that someone has talked to them about potentially improper contact, she said, adding parents sometimes have difficulty in talking about it due to the accompanying awkwardness.
“It’s really heavy stuff,” she said. “No one wants to pull a kid aside and tell them there’s people in the world who can harm them.”
But, she said, the instruction “creates conversations.”
The children are given a workbook to bring home they can complete with their parents.
She said child abuse is more rampant than she expected
even considering her experience involving Wyatt, who was abused by a new girlfriend of his father who had also abused a child previously.
“Working at Care House has really opened my eyes to how much of an epidemic it is,” she said.
She has gone through extensive training through Care House.
“I thought I knew a before I really know a now,” she said.
Last year, Care House interviewed 651 suspected victims of child abuse.
“Kids unfortunately are growing up too fast because of what they’re all exposed to,” she said.
She would like to see the program expanded to more lot lot districts and to older children, but she is limited.
“I would want this program for my kid,” she said.
She also performs other duties. She will be speaking to Macomb Community College nursing students this week about “shaken baby syndrome,” which she said was what Wyatt’s abuser did.
The Wyatt’s Law package created a child-abuse registry that parents can access to find out if an adult has been previously convicted of child abuse.
Hammel McLaughlin tried 10 years ago to find out information about the new girlfriend of Wyatt’s father but was unable to do so. She discovered the woman’s prior child-abuse conviction after she inflicted permanent, life-altering injuries on Wyatt. If she had known about it, she could have filed a legal motion to a family judge to bar the woman from being in Wyatt’s presence.
With the help of Christyne Kadlitz, whose child was the woman’s prior victim, state Sen. Kevin Hertel and former lawmakers Derek Miller and Sarah Roberts, the Wyatt’s Law package passed. It had been opposed and was reduced from a full-scale public registry due to some privacy objections.
Hammel McLaughlin, a St. Clair Shores resident, said Wyatt is doing well despite his limitations. He suffered brain damage and is blind in one eye due to the abuse at age 1. He is now 11 years old.
“He’s a happy, happy kid,” she said. “He’s always improving but there’s always progress to be made.”
He is entering middle school and always will be in special education, she added.