As a child Tennesha Bristol experienced sexual abuse at the hands of a relative and it was subsequently compounded by verbal abuse from other family members who blamed her for what was done to her and did not offer the support she so desperately needed.
She also believes that she was failed by the system as she recalled being in her early teens when a social worker visited her home after the authorities were informed by way of a letter that she may have been abused. “I told her [the social worker] everything and she told me not to worry, that she would take care of me. I never heard back from her. I never saw her again and for me she failed me because I was left there and then my relatives started to verbally abuse me and blame me for the sexual abuse,” she said in a recent interview.
