Elizabeth Phillips is blind, because a baby-sitter shook her when she was an infant.
Phillips, now a 17-year-old California high-school student, and her parents, Mary Beth and Robert Phillips, are in Salt Lake City this weekend promoting ways parents can bring about programs that keep children safe. The Phillipses, along with other parents, formed the California Trustline to help prevent child abuse.The family participated in Primary Children's Medical Center conference titled "Partnering to Outfit New Parents: Assuring Utah's Promise." Elizabeth Phillips also received the first Marty Palmer Guardian Angel award for protecting children and promoting healthy families.
The award is named after Dr. Marty Palmer, a pediatrician and children's advocate who was the first medical director of the hospital child-protection program.
Joe Horton, Primary Children's chief executive officer, said people need to "link arms and create some synergy" to prevent maltreatment of children.
Primary Children's Medical Center is placing more emphasis on helping new moms and dads cope with the frustrations of parenthood. It recently hired Dr. David Corwin, a nationally recognized child abuse expert, to head its child protection team.
Corwin is attempting to bring state agencies, advocates, professionals and others together to find ways to "outfit" parents to better care for their children. He'd like to set up a "home visitor" program to assist first-time parents and educate them about shaken-baby syndrome before they leave the hospital.
In the past 100 years, children's health has improved dramatically as once deadly illnesses such as small pox and measles have been eradicated. "The difference has been immunization," said Dr. Ed Clark, Primary Children's medical director.
Now is the time, he said, to immunize children against child abuse.
Terry Carrilio, of the Social Policy Institute at San Diego State University, explained Friday how to set up an integrated family support program. The program emphasizes early intervention to reduce child abuse and improve youngsters' cognitive development and school readiness.
The initiative, which is in its third year, has yielded some positive results including better health care for infants and reducing depression among mothers, she said.