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Alaska Family Physician is a Tireless Advocate for Abused Children

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, April 08, 2002

Contact:
Amanda Denning
American Academy of Family Physicians
(800) 274-2237, Ext. 5223
adenning@aafp.org

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:

Every child who has been abused will be protected from further harm;
Every child and family will be provided with support to put the trauma behind them;
Every child in harm’s way will be safeguarded from harm;
Every abuser will be stopped as early in life as possible.”

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.

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Founded in 1947, the AAFP represents more than 93,000 physicians and medical students nationwide. It is the only medical society devoted solely to primary care.

Nearly one in four of all office visits are made to family physicians. That is 215 million office visits each year – nearly 48 million more than the next medical specialty. Today, family physicians provide the majority of care for America’s underserved and rural populations.

In the increasingly fragmented world of health care where many medical specialties limit their practice to a particular organ, disease, age or sex, family physicians are dedicated to treating the whole person across the full spectrum of ages. Family medicine’s cornerstone is an ongoing, personal patient-physician relationship focused on integrated care.

To learn more about the American Academy of Family Physicians and about the specialty of family medicine, please visit www.aafp.org.

For more information about the AAFP's positions on issues and clinical care and downloadable multi-media on family medicine and health care, visit the AAFP Media Center.

For more information about health care, health conditions, and wellness, please visit familydoctor.org.