 What makes for excellence in hard care? It starts with one of the most amazing teams of heart surgeons and cardiologists that I've seen assembled under one roof and the region's leading technology in a new $40 million facility. This is the nationally recognized Heart and Vascular Institute of Eastern Kentucky at Pikeville Medical Center. On Wednesday, April 5th, the Child Abuse Proclamation Ceremony was held in Pikeville Park. City officials, first responders and other child protection advocates gathered to recognize April as Child Abuse Prevention Month. Pike County Judge Executive Ray Jones made the declaration himself after signing a proclamation in March. Today it being April it's the Pike County Child Abuse Prevention Proclamation event and it is put on by the DPP Department of Protection and Permanency and they organized the event to allow the judge executive to declare the month of April Child Abuse Prevention Month. So it helps spread awareness for child abuse and we have a lot of events and everything focused on getting the word out to the community. So today we had all of the community partners who deal with all aspects of a child abuse investigation. Child Abuse is a first-degree felony in Kentucky with a penalty of five to ten years in prison. If anyone witnesses or even suspects child abuse be sure to notify your local law enforcement officials. I would just want to make sure that everyone knows that Kentucky is a mandatory reporting state and if you see something and you suspect abuse it's your job to report that and it's not you have to have proof or you have to know for certain if you suspect it you should report it. I think it's a good thing for the community to see that there's so many people working together they think maybe only social services or social workers are one aspect of child abuse investigations but it really we have law enforcement here we had legal that's involved we have advocates and the children's advocacy center and it's really a team effort especially in Pot County when we work on these events to make sure that the child is protected and getting the best treatment that they can from the investigation. Reporting for Mountain Top News I'm Nick Collum