You can hardly look at a calendar these days without being confronted with a special day, week or month. But this month is an important one: April is National Child Abuse Awareness month.

In Pennsylvania, which has struggled mightily with protecting children, it’s a chance to remind ourselves that we have a long way to go. We should also be reminded that the issue doesn’t receive as much attention as it deserves — here or anywhere else.

With the death of Bentley Thomas Miller still on the minds of everyone, the issue is a raw nerve. But the fact is that child abuse was an issue before Bentley’s death, and it will likely remain an issue long after the case against those accused of mistreating him winds its way to one conclusion or another.

Deanna Hays, the executive director of the Butler County Alliance for Children, said the group has handled 559 cases since being formed in late 2013. Four hundred and fifty-six were reported sexual assaults, and Hays pointed out that in 90 percent of the cases, the victims knew their attackers.

The sliver of good news here is that many of the people responsible for looking into these reports believe that the state’s updated Child Protective Services Law is achieving results. Butler County detective John Hertzog said he looked into 643 child abuse reports in 2015, and 841 reports in 2016.

A 30 percent increase in reports of child abuse may not seem like a good thing, but Hertzog points out that those are cases that might not have been reported before Pennsylvania expanded its reporting guidelines several years ago.

Still, if there’s one big takeaway from the legislative update, it’s that we’re still not doing enough to stop child abuse in Pennsylvania. A big part of that is the simple fact that Pennsylvania hasn’t put its money where its mouth is on this issue.

Incensed by the Penn State-Jerry Sandusky scandal, the General Assembly handed down 23 new laws aimed at protecting children — and then promptly failed to follow up those mandates with the funding necessary to make them successful.

The result was a monstrous spike in the number of unanswered calls to the state’s child abuse hot line — 22 percent in 2015, according to a report issued last year by state Auditor General Eugene DePasquale — as well as spikes in the workload of county-level offices that deal with child abuse reports and referrals.

The story could have been that the state was taking much-needed steps to improve child protections. Instead, it was that our commonwealth failed to adequately support meaningful progress.

Leave it up to Pennsylvania’s lawmakers to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

The truth is that there’s no silver bullet when it comes to preventing child abuse, which is a complex issue to tackle. Experts say child abuse often happens spontaneously, in moments of anger and frustration for parents who are ill-equipped to deal with the challenges of raising children. In Butler County, where 81 percent of child abuse reports since 2013 have been classified as sexual in nature, it appears there’s a far more troubling root cause.

Still, don’t let anyone convince you that this abuse can’t be prevented.

Educational programs at schools, public service messages and programs at community centers, tough laws and a vigilant community can help protect our children. But part and parcel to that effort is embracing a constructive and honest critique of where we’ve been and why we need to change.

It’s only by acknowledging our past failures that we can hope to move beyond empty symbolism and toward real progress.