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A Community-Based Prevention Approach: Examples from the Field

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Abstract

The issue of child maltreatment is complex and requires community-based solutions to ensure the well-being of children and families. The prevention of maltreatment, both primary and secondary, involves a unique understanding of community context and individual’s behavior as it relates to society. It is important to promote practice principles believed to mitigate stressors that could lead to child maltreatment and overall, to support improved outcomes for children and families. These principles include building the capacity of communities to offer locally based services and supports that address the unique needs of children and families, and strengthen parental capacity to protect and provide for their children. However, the prevention of child abuse is not just about services, but about embracing and changing norms—those community and individual beliefs and expectations about how we should behave, and the understanding that there is knowledge to be gained from the community that individuals come from. This article presents examples from a nation-wide, federally funded program that strengthens families and prevents child maltreatment through community-based solutions that embrace social norms and promote collaboration and coordination across related efforts at the state and local level.

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Notes

  1. For more information on the availability and distribution of funds by state, please visit the Program Instruction for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention (ACYF-CB-PI-18-04) at https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/pi1804.pdf.

  2. For CBCAP programs, evidence-based (EB) practice is defined as the integration of the best available research with child abuse prevention program expertise within the context of the child, family, and community characteristics, culture, and preferences. Evidence-informed practice is similar to evidence-based, but the level of evidence supporting the programs or practices is not as strong. For more information on evidence-based and evidence-informed practice in CBCAP programs, visit the FRIENDS National Center for CBCAP at http://www.FRIENDSNRC.org.

  3. The PFS was developed by the FRIENDS National Resource Center for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention in partnership with the University of Kansas Institute for Educational Research and Public Service through funding provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is a self-administered pre-post evaluation tool for use with caregivers receiving child maltreatment prevention services survey that measures protective factors in five areas: family functioning/resiliency, social support, concrete support, nurturing and attachment, and knowledge of parenting/child development. For more information on the PFS, visit http://www.FRIENDS.org.

  4. A child or youth was identified as homeless when sharing the housing of others including relatives and friends due to a loss of housing, economic hardships, or other similar reasons. This group includes children and youth temporarily placed or who are unaccompanied youth living in emergency runaway shelters, public or private nighttime shelters, special care facilities, spouse abuse centers, hotels or motels, and uninhabitable places such as cars, camping grounds or parks, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, or bus and train stations. Highly migratory children were also considered homeless.

  5. https://chfs.ky.gov/agencies/dcbs/dpp/Documents/statewidefcfsheets.pdf.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention programs (Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic, Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, and the Massachusetts Children’s Trust Fund) that contributed information to this article. They graciously shared their knowledge, and they are part of a larger group of programs that are engaged in leading important work in communities across the nation.

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Correspondence to Rosie Gomez.

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Gomez, R., Fliss, J. A Community-Based Prevention Approach: Examples from the Field. Child Adolesc Soc Work J 36, 65–74 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10560-018-0593-x

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