Black River Technical College (BRTC) hosted the 10th Annual Child Abuse Awareness Event on the Pocahontas campus on Thursday, April 30. Around 60 people attended the event, along with members of the BRTC Phi Theta Kappa (PTK) chapter.
Rachel Koons, Social Science Instructor, started the event by welcoming all attendees and advocacy groups. BRTC’s Law Enforcement Training Academy Director Jared Bassham followed by reading the 2025 Arkansas statistics for child abuse cases. The survivor speaker for this year’s event was Ally Bowman, and the foster parent guest speaker was Cheyenne Kimble.
After hearing from Bowman and Kimble, the event moved outside and Officer Trason Johnson of the Pocahontas Police Department lead the pinwheel garden ceremony. The blue pinwheel is a national symbol for child abuse prevention. They represent healthy and safe childhoods for all children and hope for a better future. To show further show their support, all guests planted blue pinwheels outside of the Administration building to create the pinwheel garden. The garden stands as a beacon of hope for children and as a memorial for the children who lost their lives at the hands of maltreatment.
The Child Abuse Awareness event was created in 2016 by a social work class instructed by Rachel Koons and has only missed one year due to COVID-19. Each year there are multiple child advocacy groups that attend and give out information about the services they provide.
Pictures from the event can be found on BRTC’s Flickr page, BlackRiverTech.
For more information about the Child Abuse Awareness Event contact Rachel Koons at rachel.koons@blackreivertech.edu, or call at (870) 248-4172.