An Osmond uses well-known name to raise awareness of child-abuse

It was a regular day at the Division of Child and Family Services when a call from Jared Osmond, son of Virl Osmond and nephew of Donny and Marie, was sent to regional director Brent Platt.

Osmond said he got Platt's name from a friend and told him he was interested in child welfare. He asked how he could help.

"It was that simple, he just wanted to help," Platt said. "So I didn't believe him. I figured he must have had a motive or something."

At their first meeting, Osmond presented "Innocent Ones," his nine-song album all about children, and Platt thought he had found that motive. But then Osmond told him this was only his second CD, and that it was more than 10 years in the making, and he wanted to donate any profits to helping children. By then, Platt realized "if you just want to sell CDs, peddling them to DCFS employees isn't the way to go."

So Platt agreed to put him in touch with a few nonprofit community organizations (that aren't funded by the state like DCFS) so he could help. Then Osmond followed up and kept offering to speak or perform. "He wouldn't let me forget about it," Platt said.

Now Osmond and his friend, Tyler Hartle, sit on the board of directors of the Family Support and Treatment Center, which provides therapy for families, education on child abuse, and a 24-hour crisis nursery for children. They've applied for nonprofit status for an online education and therapy venture called innocentones.org. And Osmond is giving away his CDs and performing and speaking for free to raise awareness of child abuse, including an upcoming concert at the SCERA Center for the Arts.

"I'm really passionate about this -- it's not your typical album," Osmond said. "Anybody who can't afford an album, send an e-mail to me via my Web site, jaredosmond.com, and I'll give you an album. Period. I'm sincere about that."

It's not about the money, Osmond said, though "my wife would like me to break even, don't get me wrong." And it's not about the fame because, as he says on a hidden track on the album, "I used to believe that the last thing the world needed was another singing Osmond."

Rather, Osmond believes that child abuse is an epidemic, and when he told Hartle about his child-focused CD, the two began to believe there was something more they could do to help children facing abuse.

10 years of experiences

Osmond recorded a CD of other people's songs about 13 years ago, but made a conscious decision -- after seeing all the hours his famous singing uncles put in -- not to go into the music business. He makes a living as landlord of several properties, a business that somewhat ironically inspired him to get back into music.

One day while returning home from the gym, Osmond said, he had a gut-level feeling to stop by one of his properties and check on the tenants. "Call it inspiration, I guess, on a spiritual level," he said. Before he even got to the door, he knew something was wrong: "I could hear this little boy whimpering." The door had been re-keyed.

Osmond said he kicked down the door and laid eyes on a horrific scene. "The apartment was thrashed, beyond thrashed," he said. "The 2-year-old boy was sitting in the corner in a diaper that he had been in, (police) think, for three days. He had throw-up running down his chest. He was eating cat food to survive. He was so badly beaten that one eye was closed shut and the front of his hair where his bangs should be was pulled out, like he'd been yanked around. Anyway, I just sat there and wept as I helped to clean this boy up."

He said part of him wanted to hunt the mother down and let her have it. "That was my vigilante side coming through," he said. But he called the police and the boy was placed in foster care and eventually adopted. Later, Osmond got to meet with the mother as he was evicting her and asked about the episode.

"Come to find out," Osmond said, "she was abused by her father in every sense of the word, and it was so horrible for her that she turned to drugs and alcohol to deaden the pain in her own life. And my heart was filled with so much compassion for her that I realized that she needs to heal, people need to heal."

The experience also taught him that the abusers and the abused aren't the only ones who need help. "I was amazed that out of the five apartments in that building, nobody responded to them," Osmond said. "I talked to all the apartments and they said they heard it, but they just didn't want to get involved. They heard the kid crying and just said, 'Oh, it's a terrible thing,' and forgot about it. And that's the attitude so many people have with child abuse, they don't want to get involved."

It was shortly after that experience that Osmond wrote "Innocent Ones," which became the title track for his CD. Osmond has written on his Web site detailed accounts of other personal experiences that inspired the rest of the songs.

Cumulatively, the experiences have inspired him to take an almost fearless stance against child abuse. Osmond said he recently saw a woman in a shopping mall smack her child so hard he fell over, and while other people shook their heads and turned away, he made a beeline for her. He said he helped the child up and warned the woman she could be accused of child abuse for her actions.

"I don't know if I made a difference or not," Osmond said, "but I guess the point is we've got to get involved."

Teaming up to stop child abuse

Osmond and Hartle's involvement started in earnest a year ago, about the time Osmond finished his CD. Hartle had come across some statistics on the prevalence of child abuse that floored him -- experts estimate 1 in 3 children will experience some form of child abuse before age 18. "So when I heard that," Hartle said, "it hit me, like a gut feeling, 'You have to do this. You have to do this.'"

Osmond and Hartle had been friends for years, but only discovered their shared interest during a conversation about Osmond's finished CD. They decided to dig in together by following what they call the "three foot rule."

"Our theory is, what can we do within three feet of ourselves?" Osmond said. "We can serve somebody. We can keep our eyes open. We can respond."

They started with a call to Pratt, and now Joy O'Banion, director of the Family Support and Treatment Center, said Osmond is heading up fundraising efforts for the center.

"Jared's situation is pretty unique for our agency," O'Banion said. "My feeling is that because of his name, he has the ability to talk in circles that we have never been able to talk in before. So with him coming forward proactively, it puts our agency in the best situation we've ever been in to move to the next level of fundraising."

Osmond said that with his name comes publicity, but also scrutiny. He said even his uncles, when they heard about the CD, wondered if he was using a sob story to sell albums. "They really questioned what I was doing," Osmond said. "You know, 'Why? What are you doing with this? What's the point?'" But after a full explanation, he said, they were all supportive.

Osmond said he actually hopes people will scrutinize his work, if that's what it takes to gain support and raise awareness of child abuse. But the name recognition is mostly positive, Hartle said.

"Sometimes I call places as Tyler Hartle with innocentones.org," Hartle said. "And nothing happens. And then I'll call back as Tyler with the Osmonds, and I get a phone call back like that."

If innocentones.org can get nonprofit status, Hartle said it will become a place where both victims and aggressors can come to get help and counseling from professionals. It will also be an educational site to help raise awareness.

Osmond said he occasionally gets e-mails from people who were touched by his CD, "and that's payday for me." But he and Hartle hope that's only the beginning, and that the CD can be a launch pad for helping many more people.

"We hope our foundation takes off," Osmond said. "That's kind of been our vision is to get this thing going. We hope to spend all of our time doing this."

"We hope," Hartle added, "it will consume our daily lives."

• Logan Molyneux can be reached at lmolyneux@heraldextra.com or 344-2560.