Last year, the program was expanded to add a dedicated space in the hospital to treat children identified as possible victims. Dr. Christina Howard, Division Chief of Pediatric Forensic Medicine says thousands of Kentucky children have been saved in the last decade through UK’s program and partnerships with law enforcement and prevention and education plans.
"I always, think back to where we were ten years ago where it was really just myself and one other provider and what we weren't able to do because we didn't have a a large interdisciplinary team," Howard said. "And so when we say we we've evaluated 6,500 children, for example, in the past quarter, we've examined 300, but we've connected those families to over 1,800 resources because we have that interdisciplinary team."
In 2024, the program expanded when the hospital opened the Kosair for Kids Center for Safe and Healthy Children and Families, with bright kid friendly play therapy rooms, quiet private spaces and two emotional support dogs. Howard calls the center a game changer.
"We didn't want to provide mental health services in that other clinic because it's an exam room. It's a very sterile type of room, so mental health is not easy to provide in that that type of a setting." Howard added that, "this is really built to, one, minimize trauma on these types of exams, but also to be able to provide all the services that our team needs to be able to provide."
Howard says child abuse pediatrics not only helps identify children in crisis and bring perpetrators to justice, but it also helps law enforcement and child protective services identify childhood injuries that were not caused by abuse. While the state is improving, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Kentucky ranked 4th highest in the country for child maltreatment victimization rates in 2024.