The Danger Isn't Out There Anymore, It's In Their Pocket: Lauren Street with Kids Hub

All right, we're here with Lauren Street from Kids Hub Child Advocacy Center in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Lauren, thank you for being here.

Of course.

Thank you for having me.

We are thrilled.

Actually, Kids Hub reached out to me and asked if y'all could kind of do some... uh, give some information and help parenting.

As a person who's worked in child advocacy for now two decades, and now as a parent, I see it totally differently.

So I was thrilled for selfish reasons just to have you on here.

Like, you are stuck here with me for a while, and I can get all my questions answered.

Yeah.

But it is so important.

And I know that, um, I think people typically think of these child advocacy centers as being after something happens.

And my first introduction was in doing the child forensic interviews back when I was a prosecutor.

But, but you have a different role-

Mm-hmm

...

in the child advocacy center.

So tell me about your role.

Yeah, so I am the education and outreach coordinator.

So everything I work for is the preventative side.

It's the before the kiddos ever come in.

Um, and we launched our biggest Child Abuse Prevention Month campaign yet, um, in April, and it was so fabulous.

And as I was prepping for that and doing tons and tons of research, I came across something that said that 95% of child abuse is actually preventable.

And I was like, "Dude, obvious." Like, it was j- Like, I was like, "Why didn't you already know this, Lauren?" And so I have been just kind of, like, on the rampage of, like, let's make it 100%.

Like, how do I get that percentage just a little bit more and a little bit more, not just in my local community, but statewide, nationwide, and even further out.