The Rundown
"The Rundown" with hosts, Steve Adams, Executive Director, and Anabel Velasquez, with the National Center for Child Safety and Awareness, share how this proactive organization helps parents and communities to protect minors from becoming victims of human trafficking, and teaches children in a positive and fun way, how to be alert and what to do to stay safe.
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About Steve Adams & Anabel Velasquez
Steve Adams, Executive Director, National Center for Child Safety and Awareness, began his law enforcement career in 1975 as an Explorer Scout with the Placer County Sheriff’s Office. Steve worked patrol several days a week after school. He then became a sworn police officer in 1979 for a small police dept., then attended the police academy. After graduating from the police academy. he became a police officer for the City of Oceanside in San Diego County, and worked several details, including K-9's, Vice, patrol, and motorcycles. After serving with the Oceanside Police Dept. for several years, Steve transferred to the Sacramento area where he worked for the Grant Police Department, where he created the police dept's first K-9 unit and quickly became a Sergeant. He supervised the K-9 unit, was a K-9 handler, and also supervised dispatch, the administration staff, and investigations (crimes against children). His last job was Chief of Police before leaving law enforcement and becoming a private investigator. Steve also taught at the police academy for 10 years. working with new recruits every day, guiding them, encouraging them, mentoring them, and disciplining them when necessary. In October of 2000, Steve founded the National Center For Child Safety and Awareness after his daughter became a victim. Steve and his team have worked with more than 500,000 kids and parents nationwide since then and continue to increase those numbers each month.
Anabel Velasquez has spent the last 13 years partnering up with law enforcement and survivors advocating for battered women, abused children and youth. She has made it her life-long mission to not only support and advocate for children, but also for anyone else who is currently going through, or has experienced similar and traumatic situations. Anabel is a mentor, spokesperson, and serves as a Board Member for the National Center for Child Safety and Awareness, a nonprofit organization that provides families and communities with the resources to teach their children ways to avoid becoming a victim; is a member of the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence, California’s recognized domestic violence coalition which represents survivors, advocates, organizations, and allied individuals throughout the State. Anabel has been featured on several magazines and on a TV show called The Rundown and is a co-host of the radio show version. She is an ambassador, alumni mentor, and national spokesperson, and has been a member of the speakers’ bureau for her alma mater, American Intercontinental University; amongst many other roles of noteworthy status; and as of 2020, was successful in terminating the parental rights of her ex-husband who is currently serving a lengthy prison sentence as a convicted sex offender. Anabel has high hopes in shifting the lens and views in which sexual abuse/violence is not categorized as domestic violence -- SEXUAL VIOLENCE IS DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. She would love to pass laws that will help mitigate violent sexual offenders from re-offending in society. She wants to help build a society where it is okay to talk freely about the hurt, pain, and anguish that sexual violence has caused them. Anabel wants to remove the stigma and put the shame and blame back on the perpetrators of the violence who caused it -- where it belongs. Anabel’s goals and partnering up with the organizations she works with, are to meet survivors and their families where they are. By bringing awareness of the trauma that comes with non-believing, non-supportive caretakers, we can, as a society, learn how best to turn the hurt around and to build a support system that will focus on not just the victim's healing, but the family system as a whole. When the family is whole, the healing can really take shape and form their future into something wonderful- despite the circumstances. Anabel provides event planning, recruitment, training, support, technical assistance, and outreach for program volunteers and the rest of her experiences can be found on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/1anabelvelasquez/
