Alaska Family Physician is a Tireless Advocate for Abused Children

LEAWOOD, Kan. — Cathy Baldwin-Johnson, M.D., a practicing family physician from Wasilla, Alaska, and the 2002 Family Physician of the Year for the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP), is a tireless advocate for abused children in Alaska.

Baldwin-Johnson founded The Children’s Place in 1999. The Children’s Place is an agency with the mission of giving children who have been victims of physical or sexual abuse “a place to be heard…a place to be helped.” In coordination with the program director, Baldwin-Johnson has led the agency to be one of the most significant resources in the community and is a model for child advocacy programs in Alaska.

Over three million children are officially reported for suspected abuse or neglect each year. Approximately one in four girls and one in 10 boys will be sexually abused or assaulted by the time they reach the end of their teen years. What happens to children in their younger years causes permanent changes in the neural pathways responsible for how they then form relationships and respond to the stress in their environment for the rest of their lives.

Baldwin-Johnson and her team are working to help the abused and neglected children of her community find a voice. The vision of The Children’s Place is “to provide leadership in a team approach to ensure that all our children are safe, nurtured and heard. Our community will not accept child abuse and its effects and will work collaboratively so that:

Child maltreatment is a vast and multi-layered problem. “We can start with one child, one family at a time. We can work with like-minded people in our communities. We can be politically active. We can make the commitment to make our world a safer place for our children,” said Baldwin-Johnson.