Diana’s Story

Diana, a beautiful and talented girl, spent her first seven years in foster care and group homes. Starting at age five, or perhaps even earlier, she was severely sexually abused by the male caretaker who stayed overnight with the children in the therapeutic group home.

When she was seven, she was adopted by a loving family and under their care she thrived and became an accomplished gymnast. She was artistic, resourceful and popular. Diana didn’t talk about the sexual abuse she suffered until she became a teenager. When she did, her parents alerted the foster care physician who said, “That is impossible, we’ve known this man for years.” A short time later, the man who abused Diana phoned her family and said that Diana spoke the truth about the abuse.

Diana’s parents tried to help her heal from the past, but no amount of love or therapy could bring back the self-esteem the man who abused her stole from her.

Even with her strong will to overcome her childhood trauma, Diana and her family suffered a final tragedy when she eventually died by suicide.

The man who abused Diana, this man who stayed all night with the children in the group home, was also a family man, a father. Had he been screened, Diana and countless other children could have been saved from ever knowing the horror of sexual abuse.

It is a measure of her family’s heartbreak and determination to protect other children from the horror of sexual abuse that they have lent their daughter’s name to The Diana Screen^®.

For more information about The Diana Screen^® or the Abel Screening, Inc. line of Child Protection Products, please Contact Us or call at 1.404.874.4772.