YOU Can Make a Difference in the Lives of Children!
Welcome to the Healing Embrace Network. Our goal is to bring healing, happiness, and success into the lives of child victims and adult survivors of abuse and neglect.
We aim to accomplish this goal by enhancing the quality of care and services available to these individuals. And we could really use your help.
Make a Commitment to Children
You can help by making a commitment to the children—and adults—who have endured such undeserved pain in their lives. The first step in this commitment is to become more aware of the challenges they face—not just while they’re being victimized, but during the healing process, which can take the remainder of their lifetime.
Perhaps the most regrettable challenge they face is society's lack of practical, action-based concern for the welfare of these victims. We all express outrage, of course, when we hear the stories and statistics of abuse and neglect. But then we go right back to channeling our time, attention, and money on people, products, and issues that contribute little to nothing toward helping the nearly 900,000 abuse and neglect victims in the United States annually.*
If we want to be serious about the welfare of children, we need to make it a priority in the collective consciousness of our country. It will require a drastic change in focus, but 900,000 children a year deserve our attention, don't they?
Take a Stand Against Child Abuse and Neglect
Here’s where the Healing Embrace Network and you come in. Together we can advance a movement to make the healing of child abuse and neglect victims—an often forgotten group—a major priority in our country. It will take work and time, but together we can get it done.
So join us and take a stand against child abuse and neglect. Make a statement that you care about children, that you can and will do something pragmatic about their welfare beyond just uttering a few words of regret about their circumstances. And actually follow through with your commitment.
In other words, really help children. Don't just go through the motions of helping children. Really, truly, absolutely, positively help them.
How You Can Help
If you’re a professional who provides services to victims and survivors, take advantage of the tools and resources we offer on this site. Also contribute to the dialogue in our forum, contribute articles we can share through this site, and please strongly consider volunteering your time to us directly. We have a great abundance of needs.
If you’re a survivor or just a concerned citizen, please take a pledge to stand against abuse and neglect. Also please consider becoming a foster or adoptive parent to a child in need of a loving home. Furthermore, become an advocate for victims and survivors, and please strongly consider volunteering your time or money to our cause.
Thank you for your interest in aiding the healing process for innocent victims and survivors of abuse and neglect. In the grand scheme of things, your help is among the greatest gifts anyone could ever share with the world.
All the best,
David Lee Cummings & Brenten T. Byrd
Founders, The Healing Embrace Network
* Source: The President's FY 2008 Budget and Children, Child Welfare League of America; also, this statistic indicates number of verified child victims of abuse and neglect, so the number of actual victims could be significantly higher.
Positive Thoughts
"I love children. They do not prattle of yesterday: their interests are all of today and the tomorrows—I love children."
– Richard Mansfield
FREE RTC Guidebook!!!
Our free guidebook, Tips and Tricks for Working with Children in Residential Treatment Care, is now available for download. If you work with children in a residential treatment setting, you'll want to download your free copy today. This guidebook is useful also to parents and foster parents of children living at home.
Andrew Vachss Is in the House!
A friend has sent us this 1993 YouTube footage of Oprah Winfrey interviewing child advocate Andrew Vachss, a founder of the National Association to Protect Children. We love his passionate, action-based approach to child protection and his unforgiving persecution of their abusers.
Ask Yourself ...
Are you really helping children? Or are you just going through the motions of helping children? There is a BIG difference.
What's going on?
What's going on in our Forum? Visit to find out.
A manual for managing kids?
Wish you had a manual that told you how to work with challenging kids? Now you do.
Can you help?
We need your help with making the Healing Embrace Network an effective advocacy resource for children and adults. If you've got skills or resources you can contribute, please do!
Cha-ching!
How did one of the founders of Healing Embrace fall in love with advocacy work? It's all the fault of a little girl and her makeshift feelings box.