Sharyl Kato and the hard sell of prevention programs
Preserving prevention
Preserving prevention
By Jonathan Gramling
Part 2 of 2
There is an old philosophical question that asks ‘If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it,
does it still make a sound?’ The same philosophical question could almost be posed about prevention
programs. “If a prevention program changes the life of a child so that he or she doesn’t commit abuse or is
violent as an adult, will anyone know that the abuse didn’t happen?”
That is a question that has to be answered by many funding sources of non-profit agencies in a tight
economy when funding often goes to the squeaky wheel, to services that are treating immediate problems,
and the “invisible” problems that prevention programs make not happen make it tempting to balance the
budget by cutting them.
Over the past 29 years that she has led the Rainbow Project — which provides programs and
services to children and families impacted by trauma and stress — and has continued to be on the front
lines as a therapist, Sharyl Kato has witnessed the impact that economic downturns can have on families
and children.
“When the auto industry laid off thousands of workers and even in Ohio I recall seeing the school
system develop a new curricula because they found a domino effect with children in the schools and had to
start support groups because of what was happening in the families,” Kato said in her “child-friendly” office
on E. Washington Avenue. “I know there have been national studies looking at the increase in child sexual
abuse, domestic violence and child abuse when economic times are just the last straw and just push them
over the edge.”
Part 2 of 2
There is an old philosophical question that asks ‘If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it,
does it still make a sound?’ The same philosophical question could almost be posed about prevention
programs. “If a prevention program changes the life of a child so that he or she doesn’t commit abuse or is
violent as an adult, will anyone know that the abuse didn’t happen?”
That is a question that has to be answered by many funding sources of non-profit agencies in a tight
economy when funding often goes to the squeaky wheel, to services that are treating immediate problems,
and the “invisible” problems that prevention programs make not happen make it tempting to balance the
budget by cutting them.
Over the past 29 years that she has led the Rainbow Project — which provides programs and
services to children and families impacted by trauma and stress — and has continued to be on the front
lines as a therapist, Sharyl Kato has witnessed the impact that economic downturns can have on families
and children.
“When the auto industry laid off thousands of workers and even in Ohio I recall seeing the school
system develop a new curricula because they found a domino effect with children in the schools and had to
start support groups because of what was happening in the families,” Kato said in her “child-friendly” office
on E. Washington Avenue. “I know there have been national studies looking at the increase in child sexual
abuse, domestic violence and child abuse when economic times are just the last straw and just push them
over the edge.”
Sharyl Kato has been The Rainbow
Project’s executive director for 29 years.
Project’s executive director for 29 years.
And over the past 30 years as American society has experienced some social dissolution and transitioning, grandparents have been relied
upon more and more to care for their grandchildren. “For whatever reason — sometimes it is suicide, homicide or mental illness — they are
struggling themselves as seniors and then they have the added stress of having now their grandchildren,” Kato said.
The concept of prevention actually contains several different facets. “Many, many years ago, there was a community dialogue about
prevention and the definition of it,” Kato said. “There is something called primary prevention where there have not been any identified risk factors
[such as after school programming for kids during the time when most juvenile crimes and violence occurs].
Then there is also targeted prevention where you know there are some problems there and those are red flagged early on,” Kato continued.
“And then you have to deal with the more serious problems through intervention. I think those are the most cost efficient because you are targeting
specifically on preventing rather than a generic prevention of what? You are at least trying to target that population.”
Kato was quick to say that all of the levels of prevention and intervention are needed in order to create a safety net for children in terms of
care and well-being. “It’s not an either or,” Kato emphasized. “I think that’s where people start getting territorial or misunderstand that it isn’t one
or the other. With the other service, we see ourselves as prevention despite the level of the service because of the age that we work with. Early
intervention and prevention can be used in many different ways depending on the population, the severity and then looking at what is true
treatment when there is that high, severe level where you are actually doing more of the recovery, remedial work after the fact. But for us,
intervening early means that we are intervening after an incident that happened maybe once or twice and we really do want to prevent that future
generational cycle from continuing again on a generational level, not just in terms of lowering the incidence in this generation. So we see it on
multiple levels.”
In Kato’s view, the first line of prevention and early intervention are the day care providers who are on the front-line of providing care to
young children. The more education they have in detecting problems early, the more cost-effective and limited the intervention is.
“When you have folks who are even librarians or teachers and folks working with children like pediatricians who are very much aware of the full
continuum of indicators, that is when we have a very seamless community that goes ‘Oh, now we need to look closer,’” Kato said. “Let’s move on
to this next level to see if there is a problem.’ One of the programs that we have is called the Pride Project where we are actually calling early
childhood programs. They see those changes and life transitions. And they are with those children from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. What better and richer
environment than to put our resources into training them. Then they are aware of all the kids they see from then on. We see that happening where
there is a very sophisticated level from early childhood day care providers who know a lot about what to look for. We’re getting much more
sophisticated referrals.”
While the temptation for decision-makers in fiscally-difficult times is to cut programs that aren’t treating already identified problems,
prevention and early care are very important to reducing costs because the problems are dealt with early before they are left to fester and require
more costly interventions.
upon more and more to care for their grandchildren. “For whatever reason — sometimes it is suicide, homicide or mental illness — they are
struggling themselves as seniors and then they have the added stress of having now their grandchildren,” Kato said.
The concept of prevention actually contains several different facets. “Many, many years ago, there was a community dialogue about
prevention and the definition of it,” Kato said. “There is something called primary prevention where there have not been any identified risk factors
[such as after school programming for kids during the time when most juvenile crimes and violence occurs].
Then there is also targeted prevention where you know there are some problems there and those are red flagged early on,” Kato continued.
“And then you have to deal with the more serious problems through intervention. I think those are the most cost efficient because you are targeting
specifically on preventing rather than a generic prevention of what? You are at least trying to target that population.”
Kato was quick to say that all of the levels of prevention and intervention are needed in order to create a safety net for children in terms of
care and well-being. “It’s not an either or,” Kato emphasized. “I think that’s where people start getting territorial or misunderstand that it isn’t one
or the other. With the other service, we see ourselves as prevention despite the level of the service because of the age that we work with. Early
intervention and prevention can be used in many different ways depending on the population, the severity and then looking at what is true
treatment when there is that high, severe level where you are actually doing more of the recovery, remedial work after the fact. But for us,
intervening early means that we are intervening after an incident that happened maybe once or twice and we really do want to prevent that future
generational cycle from continuing again on a generational level, not just in terms of lowering the incidence in this generation. So we see it on
multiple levels.”
In Kato’s view, the first line of prevention and early intervention are the day care providers who are on the front-line of providing care to
young children. The more education they have in detecting problems early, the more cost-effective and limited the intervention is.
“When you have folks who are even librarians or teachers and folks working with children like pediatricians who are very much aware of the full
continuum of indicators, that is when we have a very seamless community that goes ‘Oh, now we need to look closer,’” Kato said. “Let’s move on
to this next level to see if there is a problem.’ One of the programs that we have is called the Pride Project where we are actually calling early
childhood programs. They see those changes and life transitions. And they are with those children from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. What better and richer
environment than to put our resources into training them. Then they are aware of all the kids they see from then on. We see that happening where
there is a very sophisticated level from early childhood day care providers who know a lot about what to look for. We’re getting much more
sophisticated referrals.”
While the temptation for decision-makers in fiscally-difficult times is to cut programs that aren’t treating already identified problems,
prevention and early care are very important to reducing costs because the problems are dealt with early before they are left to fester and require
more costly interventions.