CORPUS CHRISTI - It's a message child advocates work to spread every day: Reporting child abuse and neglect is everyone's responsibility.

Advocates' efforts will get a boost in April, which is National Child Abuse Prevention Month.

For many abused children, help comes too late or not at all.

Last year, 280 children in Texas died because of abuse or neglect, 20 of which were from South Texas. There also were more than 68,000 victims of abuse or neglect.

That's why reporting the first sign of suspected abuse is vital, said John Lennan, spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

"Our most vulnerable are many times the youngest victims,” Lennan said. "They don't have the ability to make an outcry.”

Lennan said everyone has not only a moral duty but a legal one to report any suspected cases of child abuse or neglect.

"Our investigators never want to hear, "We suspected that,' or 'We knew that was going on for years and thought someone else reported it,'” Lennan said. "Everybody has that obligation.”

Preventing child sexual abuse also starts with knowing that in most cases the abuser is someone the child knows, said Ricardo Jimenez, the program director and lead forensic interviewer for the Children's Advocacy Center of the Coastal Bend.

"Stranger danger almost doesn't exist,” he said.

The local nonprofit works with children who have been sexually and physically abused. It offers services such as adult and teen support groups and other victim assistance.

About 10 percent of sexual abuse to children is done by strangers with the rest committed by the victims' family members or someone else they knew, according to national figures from Darkness to Light, a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing child sexual abuse.

"You really don't realize that the rest of the community doesn't see what we see,” Jimenez said.

That's why he said a month designated to informing the public about the issue is so important.

Public awareness may already be helping in the fight against child abuse and neglect.

Last year, Nueces County had 1,648 victims of child abuse and neglect. That was down from the previous year, which had 2,032 victims, according to Texas Department of Family and Protective Services figures.

The dip in numbers is an encouraging sign, said Diana Booth, the recruitment and training coordinator for Court Appointed Special Advocates of the Coastal Bend.

"The cycle's slowly starting to work toward the positive,” she said.