First contact

I can only share my experience at present, although I will share things my children have spoken to me about, I am careful as to what I can include at this time. If a child, any child discloses abuse of any kind we should all know what to do. In my experience, I am devastated to say, we are still in the dark ages. In today's society reporting a crime is one of the hardest things you can do, when a child discloses sexual abuse, your whole world crashes, to describe it as traumatic is underestimating the effect it will have on the person the child has chosen. Sheer panic sets in and your left in a spin of emotions that resemble a human tornado inside a whirlpool. Or simply your traumatised. Making a phone call to a police station to be met with an untrained bumbling bobby, who simply answers " You've phoned the wrong station, it's not our area." Trying to respond to that and enquiring who should I phone, will only send your emotions into turbo spin. The then fumbling bobby is stumped as to know who you can speak to. Which begs the question, just how rare is it for someone to report child abuse? And yes this is only the beginning...........