{"id":226865,"date":"2026-04-10T21:52:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T21:52:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/226865\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T21:52:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T21:52:06","slug":"florida-officials-meet-at-the-capitol-to-stand-against-child-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/226865\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida officials meet at the Capitol to stand against child abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV\/Florida Capital Bureau ) &#8211; Blue and white pinwheels now fill the front lawn of the Florida Capitol to advocate for children.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">On Friday, the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) planted those pinwheels to recognize Child Abuse Prevention Month.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">State leaders spoke about the importance of restoring families and empowering parents through counseling. They also encouraged people to get involved in local foster care and child welfare programs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-center article-text\">Florida Politics<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Taylor Hatch, secretary of DCF, emphasized the importance of this month in her speech. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWhat a beautiful morning it is to gather, bring awareness, but also bring action to a topic of great importance because protecting children is more than a responsibility, it\u2019s a reflection of who we are and what we believe,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">This year, state lawmakers passed bills that discuss child protection and medical examination when claims of abuse are made.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Those bills have not reached the governor\u2019s desk yet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Less than two weeks ago, he signed a new law that will increase penalties for child predators.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 WCTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV\/Florida Capital Bureau ) &#8211; Blue and white pinwheels now fill the front lawn of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[102209,7080,102207,6281,712,102208,232,234,233,102210],"class_list":["post-226865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-child-abuse-prevention-month","tag-florida-department-of-children-and-families","tag-florida-officials","tag-governor","tag-law","tag-pinwheels","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news","tag-taylor-hatch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}