PREVENTION CENTER OPENS IN SUFFOLK

The Parents For Megan's Law and Childhood Sexual Abuse Prevention Center marked their opening in Stony Brook last week.  Attending were Suffolk County Executive Robert Gaffney, state Senator James Lack and county legislators.  With the help of $196,000 in county and state funds, the information clearinghouse and resource center moved into its new home, a four-office suite in a Stony Brook strip mall on Nesconset Highway.  Laura Ahearn, the center's founder and executive director, provided those services out of her Stony Brook home for the past two years.  It started with two people in a six-by-eight room and then graduated to a downstairs office space, said Ahearn, a certified social worker and mother of two.  When we took over the kids' play room, we knew it was time to look for help.  There's finally one place where people can come for information about Megan's Law, she said.  Gaffney added that while there will always be sex offenders, the community needs to protect itself, and the law wouldn't have been as effective as it has without Parents for Megan's Law.

(Stony Brook, New York)