{"id":73,"date":"2013-06-20T20:27:48","date_gmt":"2013-06-20T20:27:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spccrochester.wordpress.com\/?p=73"},"modified":"2013-06-20T20:27:48","modified_gmt":"2013-06-20T20:27:48","slug":"a-readers-reflections-on-out-of-the-darkness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.spcc-roch.org\/?p=73","title":{"rendered":"A Reader&#8217;s Reflections on: Out of the Darkness"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align:center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/spccrochester.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/06\/maryellen.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-78\" alt=\"maryellen\" src=\"http:\/\/spccrochester.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/06\/maryellen.jpg?w=163\" width=\"163\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\"><i>Katherine Hannula Hill joined the Supervised Visitation\u00a0Program at SPCC in the winter of 2012,\u00a0after relocating\u00a0from Seattle. She is inspired in her work helping families reunite after lengthy separation, and loves to facilitate growth and repair in parent\/child relationships involved in the child welfare system.\u00a0Katherine lives in a small town outside of Rochester, NY. <\/i><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align:center;\"><i>Inspired to learn more about SPCC\u2019s history, Katherine recently read <\/i><strong><i>Out of the Darkness: The Story of Mary Ellen Wilson by <\/i><\/strong><i><strong>Eric A. Shelman &amp; Stephen Lazoritz<\/strong>. SPCC was created as a direct result of Mary Ellen\u2019s maltreatment, and she was the first child to be served by SPCC. Mary Ellen\u2019s life, survival, and SPCC\u2019s interventions mark the beginning of the child protection movement in the United States. <\/i><\/p>\n<p>Coming by a job these days is no easy task, so when you manage to get one everyone asks about it. And when you live in a small town of 400 (including cats and dogs) that means <i>everyone<\/i>&#8212; even that person at the deli you\u2019re pretty sure you\u2019ve never met before. After three months of looking, I was happy to tell everyone when I finally found a job at SPCC. It quickly became apparent that telling that I got a job was the easy part. Explaining what the job was, and who it was with was more difficult. Conversations went something like this:<\/p>\n<p>Them: \u201cI heard you just got a job! Congratulations! Where do you work?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Me: \u201cSPCC!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Them: \u201cSP\u2026 what?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Me: \u201cThe Society for the Protection and Care of Children.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Them: \u201cOh\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Me: \u201cI work in the Supervised Visitation Program.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Them: \u201cOh\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This only happened once or twice before I came up with a spiel. I would cut them off at \u201cSP\u2014\u201d and say: \u201cThe Society for the Protection and Care of Children. It\u2019s a long name with a really cool story. It used to be called Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, mirroring the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, or the ASPCA. In the 1870\u2019s a little girl was being horribly abused by her parents, to the point where neighbors wanted to get involved to protect her. But get this\u2014there was nowhere to bring a child being abused. At this time an agency had just been formed to protect animals and the neighbors brought her there, hoping they could help her. Isn\u2019t it weird to think that our country had a place for animals to be protected before we had even considered creating a place for children to be protected?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After six months of working at SPCC, this story comes in handy when I meet new people\u2014it\u2019s a quick, genuine and digestible beginning history of our agency. While I got comfortable telling it, I started to get curious about the child behind the story: Mary Ellen Wilson. I decided to learn more about her, and picked up her biography.<\/p>\n<p><i>Out of the Darkness: The Story of Mary Ellen Wilson (<\/i><i>Eric A. Shelman &amp; Stephen Lazoritz)<\/i> brings to light what this little girl suffered before being rescued by her \u2018guardian angel,\u2019 Etta Angell Wheeler. This story weaves together three very different lives: Mary Ellen, who had been locked up, beaten, cut and burned by her foster mother for more than seven years, Etta Angell Wheeler, a missionary who spent her days helping the poor of New York City\u2019s slums, and surprisingly, Henry Bergh, the founder of the ASPCA. \u00a0It\u2019s a story that illustrates empathy, determination and right and wrong. Mary Ellen was rescued in New York City, and brought to Rochester, NY to heal and find safety with extended family, in turn influencing the creation of SPCC\u00a0of Rochester\u00a0in 1875.<\/p>\n<p>Our system is far from perfect, but reading Mary Ellen\u2019s story made me appreciate the options that we have today. If I see\u2014 as Mary Ellen\u2019s neighbors saw\u2014 a little girl who is never allowed outdoors, if I hear\u2014 as her neighbors heard\u2014 a little girl\u2019s screams as she was beaten daily, if I know \u2013as these neighbors knew\u2014 of torture happening to a child, I can do something to change that. <i>Out of the Darkness<\/i> is the story of one little girl and the men and women who brought about the child protection system.\u00a0 They gave us the opportunity to say, \u201cThat isn\u2019t right,\u201d regarding child maltreatment, and tools to do something about it.<\/p>\n<p><i>Out of the Darkness<\/i> is the true account of a young girl whose suffering created the need for our agency.\u00a0 After finishing the book, I clearly see that Mary Ellen\u2019s story illuminates the history of SPCC, but it also tells the beginning of our country\u2019s child welfare system and how SPCC helped lay the foundational idea that protecting children is critical for our nation. \u00a0For those interested in learning about the how our country began shifting its way of thinking around keeping children safe from abuse, I recommend reading this book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Katherine Hannula Hill joined the Supervised Visitation\u00a0Program at SPCC in the winter of 2012,\u00a0after relocating\u00a0from Seattle. She is inspired in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[75,76,77,78,79,80],"class_list":["post-73","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-child-protection","tag-foster-care","tag-henry-bergh","tag-mary-ellen-wilson","tag-new-york-city","tag-spcc"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A Reader&#039;s Reflections on: Out of the Darkness - Society for the Protection and Care of Children<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.spcc-roch.org\/?p=73\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Reader&#039;s Reflections on: Out of the Darkness - Society for the Protection and Care of Children\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Katherine Hannula Hill joined the Supervised Visitation\u00a0Program at SPCC in the winter of 2012,\u00a0after relocating\u00a0from Seattle. 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