Stop Child Abuse Now (SCAN) - 1490

Tonight's special guest is Benjamin Schaeffer from Neosho, Missouri, a child abuse survivor and former foster kid child. "My mother was very physically and psychologically abusive throughout my entire relationship with her," Ben says. "My siblings and I were in foster care and were returned home when we really shouldn't have been." He continues, "The home situation has remained in constant turmoil that my siblings still deal live with." The statistics of children who are abused in their families are astonishing, and may be repeated for generations. Often its impacts are life-long and may be passed on to one's own children. The number of children who are abused in foster care is also hard to believe. "I left home at 17 and had addiction problems," Ben says, noting that he was in and out of jail and had an especially rough early adulthood. But things are better for him now. "In the last ten years I have come above and beyond anything I ever had imagined and am working still to recover from the effects my childhood." He's also engaged in giving back, often a hallmark of an 'attitude of gratitude' that we see from many NAASCA family members. "I work constantly now to do whatever I can to fight to help children," he says. "They are our future and they must be protected and nurtured." We couldn't agree more.