GREENFIELD — There were 558,899 victims of child abuse and neglect nationwide in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Child Maltreatment Report from that year.

Of those children, 74.3% were victims of neglect, 17% were physically abused, 10.6% were sexually abused and 6.8% were psychologically maltreated.

In recognition of April as National Child Abuse Prevention Month, the Children’s Advocacy Center of Franklin County and the North Quabbin will host a flag-raising ceremony on Friday, April 18, at 11 a.m. on the Greenfield Common. Beth Agostino-Evans, the center’s interim executive director, said the ceremony, held in conjunction with a month-long T-shirt exhibit at the Greenfield Public Library, will recognize the number of children abused each year while also celebrating their stories of survival.

“Ultimately, each T-shirt represents a child we have worked with this year,” Agostino-Evans said. “Our amazing volunteers put together all of these T-shirts with the ages and grades of the kids we worked with, and they wrote a lot of good facts about the services we offer. We offer forensic interviews, medical evaluations and referrals for mental health services.”

In addition to the client services offered, the center does training and outreach work. Agostino-Evans said part of the center’s prevention work is spreading awareness of the problem and the resources available to solve it, which is why the center created an exhibit of T-shirts. The display at the library includes 158 T-shirts, representing children aged 3 months to 18 years that the center worked with this year.

“When you walk into the library, it’s just full of T-shirts. It’s rather overwhelming seeing all these shirts and knowing what they represent,” Agostino-Evans said.

The ceremony on the Greenfield Common will include the raising of the child abuse prevention flag, and speakers from the advocacy center and their partners, who will discuss child abuse prevention efforts taking place locally and statewide.

Kelly Broadway, a community educator with the Children’s Advocacy Center, said that as part of its strategic plan for 2024-2026, the center has sought additional grants and funding sources to expand resources and programming. In December, the organization opened a second center in Orange, and with the help of The Children’s Trust of Massachusetts, the center is working to expand its team and bring on a designated “prevention ambassador,” who will be tasked with meeting with different schools and athletic organizations to see what resources, training and prevention tools they could use help with.

“We’ve been working with a team of 10 to 15 stakeholders, and we’ve been meeting monthly to discuss what existing and what youth-serving organizations they need in terms of prevention resources,” Broadway said. “We’re hoping to remove barriers to prevention.”

The center offers an online 51A child abuse mandated reporter training and can lead abusive behavior recognition and prevention training.

“We don’t want our community to not know who to go to,” Broadway said. “People should know there’s local content experts who can help them navigate prevention.”

Meanwhile on Beacon Hill, state legislators are considering a package of bills designed to expand child abuse prevention efforts across the state.

“An act establishing employee screening requirements in schools to prevent child sexual abuse” was presented to the House of Representatives by Rep. Natalie Blais, D-Deerfield.

If passed, the bill would require applicants seeking employment at schools to give written consent allowing the school to contact former employers and receive information as to whether the applicant has ever been subject to a misconduct allegation/investigation, whether they have ever been subject to a 51A child abuse investigation and if they had ever been disciplined, been dismissed or resigned from a job during or as a result of an investigation.

Meanwhile, “An act relative to sexual assaults by adults in positions of authority or trust” was presented to the state Senate by Sen. Joan Lovely, D-Essex. If passed, the bill would create criminal penalties for teachers, coaches, tutors and other “adults in positions of trust” that form romantic or sexual relationships with students, even if the student is over the age of consent, which is 16 in Massachusetts.

After the flag-raising ceremony on April 18, community members are invited to join the Children’s Advocacy Center at the Greenfield Public Library for a coffee reception and to explore the T-shirt exhibit.

For more information about the center’s work and available resources, visit cacfranklinnq.org. To report suspected abuse, contact the 24-hour hotline at 800-792-5200.

Reach Madison Schofield at 413-930-4579 or mschofield@recorder.com.