This technical package represents a select group of strategies based on the best available evidence to help prevent child abuse and neglect. These strategies include strengthening economic supports to families; changing social norms to support parents and positive parenting; providing quality care and education early in life; enhancing parenting skills to promote healthy child development; and intervening to lessen harms and prevent future risk. The strategies represented in this package include those with a focus on preventing child abuse and neglect from happening in the first place as well as approaches to lessen the immediate and long-term harms of child abuse and neglect. These strategies range from a focus on individuals, families, and relationships to broader community and societal change. This range of strategies is needed to better address the interplay between individual-family behavior and broader neighborhood, community, and cultural contexts. This package supports CDC’s Essentials for Childhood framework for preventing child abuse and neglect. In particular, it articulates a select set of strategies and specific approaches that can create the context for healthy children and families and prevent child abuse and neglect (Goals 3 and 4 of the framework—see below). Commitment, cooperation, and leadership from numerous sectors, including public health, education, justice, health care, social services, business/labor, and government can bring about successful implementation of this package.
- Topic(s): Child Maltreatment, Sexual Assault/Rape
- Publication Date: 2016
- Focus: Advocacy/Policy, Collaboration/Partnerships, Community Strategies, Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DEI)/Health Equity, Risk & Protective Factors, Social Determinants of Health
- Organization: Centers for Disease Control & Prevention
- Type: Case Study