A local office of the Child Protect Children’s Advocacy Group, which is located in Montgomery, would be welcome.

The number of cases of potentially physically and sexually abused children in Chilton County has increased over the past five years, the Advertiser reported Friday. That is a troubling revelation. With improvements in education and communication, one would hope such cases would be on the decline.

That’s why any addition to the community that could help reverse the trend would be a good thing. Child Protect, for those unfamiliar, is a place where abused children are taken to be interviewed about their situation. The center has professional observers that are video taped with the children to help make decisions about whether the child was abused.

“We have been working with Child Protect for many years now,” said Marilyn Colson, director of the Chilton County Department of Human Resources. “When it comes to the children, it is very important that they be interviewed right the first time because every time you interview a child it affects them.”

So, it makes sense to push for a Child Protect office closer to home. Other programs exist to deal with the same problem. As a user on www.clantonadvertiser.com mentioned, Thorsby has implemented the Safeguarding Kids is Priority program, which teaches children how to protect themselves from abuse.

We wouldn’t mind seeing the SKIP program made mandatory for all county schools. If this is the approach chosen or not, something should be done to curb the disturbing trend of an increase in the number of child abuse cases in our county.