State task force takes new action to stop child abuse

Baby Kaleb Janosik was just two weeks old in July 2011 when he was beaten to death allegedly at the hands of his own father, Justin Janosik.

It is a tragedy all too common in Bexar County.

Last year, 20 children died county-wide as a result of child abuse. There were also more overall incidents of child abuse in San Antonio than in Houston, a city with roughly 800,000 more people.

Those staggering numbers are what brought the Texas Statewide Blue Ribbon Task Force together Monday at St. Peter-St. Joseph Children’s Home. The group’s main goal is stopping child abuse and neglect and now it has created a new commission to help oversee that.

The commission is modeled after the city’s SA2020 initiative, which itself wants to reduce child abuse by 25 percent.

James Castro is a member of the task force and CEO of St. Peter-St. Joseph. He says this new commission is just one step in a much longer journey.

“We need to engage more people who will then engage elected officials and faith-based people,” said Castro, “and that engages people to invest dollars toward making a solution.”

It’s a solution that could prevent deaths like Kaleb’s that happen too often at the hands of the people who are supposed to love them most.