Dan Leonard doesn’t worry about what other people think of him. For the male sex abuse survivor, it’s important to put a name and face to sexual abuse.

‘The reason I do speak is to get people talking, to get this on people’s minds so that people will stop being silent bystanders,’ Leonard said. ‘When I was abused, there were plenty of people that knew this guy wasn’t right. That he liked little boys. There were rumors around town but nobody did anything about it.’

Prevention of sexual abuse is the purpose of Leonard’s activism because he does not want it to continue to happen.

Leonard is a panelist for Thursday night’s town hall meeting at Onondaga Community College’s Storer Auditorium. The meeting will focus on preventing child abuse in youth athletics and was organized by the McMahon/Ryan Child Advocacy Center.

There are eight panelists, including law enforcement officers and experts from sexual abuse advocacy centers. Becky Palmer of radio station B104.7 will moderate the panel.

As a result of the recent sexual abuse allegations against former associate men’s basketball coach Bernie Fine and the investigation at Pennsylvania State University, McMahon/Ryan Center’s executive director Julie Cecile said she wants this meeting to be something constructive for the community.

Cecile said she hopes to see a packed auditorium of 350 people. Though anyone can attend, the target audience is youth sports and youth organizations.

Cecile said she doesn’t believe there is enough information and education for those youth organizations. By the time people leave Thursday night, she said she hopes they have a better understanding about the signs and symptoms of child abuse to advocate for children who are under their supervision.

‘We’re trying to get it so that more and more youth organizations, youth sports, are actually concentrating on it and realizing it could be a problem in their organization,’ Cecile said.

Another panelist, Tim Donovan of the State University of New York Youth Sports Institute, said this extends beyond just youth coaches.

‘Coaches are not special in this regard,’ Donovan said in an email. ‘They’re some of the best people I know. It should be held with all groups who interact with children, next should be school teachers.’

Cecile said it was important to make sure the center covered all its bases by having different organizations together for the panel. She said to ‘eradicate’ child abuse, it’s important to make sure it’s a team effort.

Leonard said he wants to set the tone during the eight minutes he’s up at the podium.

‘I’ve been in town for 30 years. People know me,’ Leonard said. ‘I think it helps to look at somebody you know and say, ‘Geez, this could happen to anybody.”

He hopes people learn possible pointers about who a sexual predator might be from his speech.

It is important for people to go to the meeting, Leonard said, because they will learn the signs of sexual abuse, how to report suspected abuse and what follows that.

Leonard wants to make clear that tomorrow is not a witch hunt and won’t be critical of youth group directors, but they have to always be vigilant.

‘Any group that has children, you are a magnet for pedophiles,’ Leonard said. ‘They will find you. Nothing you’re doing wrong. If you have kids, they’re going to find you. We want to highlight that, and we want to put you on guard.’

dgproppe@syr.edu

Published on January 18, 2012 at 12:00 pm