Local woman stands strong for child abuse victims and families

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. – During Child Abuse Prevention Month, it’s essential to raise awareness and inform the community about the resources available to them.

Many people don’t consider the negative impact of abuse, addiction, or neglect, but Wanda Johnson understands the effects. As a nonprofit founder who’s supported her daughter by becoming the primary caretaker for her grandchildren, she is motivated to help people in difficult situations.

Wanda Johnson, the founder of the Journey to Faith in Recovery, says, “I have two of my grandkids, and one is special needs, and he got abused. And that’s how my husband and I ended up within.”

Johnson took the time to work with other leaders in the community and discovered the value of stability in a household.

Tyler Moore, a principal consultant, tells us,  “When you’re working with kids, their emotions and their ability to process emotions is very underdeveloped and won’t even mature until they’re up to age 25. So they draw their emotional cues and their emotional decisions from the people around them, especially the adults in their lives. If those adults aren’t well regulated and can’t manage their emotions well, the children are going to pick these habits up too, and it’s just going to propagate across all their relationships.”

Johnson is just starting her nonprofit, but she remains motivated because she knows that there are mothers and fathers out there who need support.

She says, “Don’t lose faith. You can turn anything bad into something good by learning from it and not being afraid to let people help you, because there are always new ways to learn how to handle things instead of just letting it bury you.”