Post date: Jan 06, 2011 7:54:17 PM

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Draft Statement of Support and Recommendations for the National Prevention Strategy

A growing body of evidence shows a strong association between early trauma resulting from child abuse and neglect and many of our nation’s most serious health concerns including substance abuse, heart disease, smoking, obesity, anxiety and depression. Experts assert that decreasing the number and severity of early adverse experiences and increasing protective relationships that buffer children from the effects of toxic stress can significantly reduce chronic disease across the life course.[1] In other words, preventing child maltreatment is a powerful lever to improve the health and well-being of today’s children and tomorrow’s adults.

Because the strategic directions of the National Prevention Strategy are designed to focus action on the factors that underlie the leading causes of death and disability in the U.S., we strongly urge the National Prevention Council to include an explicit focus on child maltreatment prevention. We believe that any effort to improve the nation’s health outcomes must: include an emphasis on healthy child development; support safe, stable and nurturing environments for children and their families; and build strong community-based opportunities for families to build protective factors.

In particular, we recommend incorporating strategies to build the five Protective Factors in families that are the foundation of the Strengthening Families™ approach. Extensive research supports the common-sense notion that when Protective Factors are present and robust in a family, the likelihood of child abuse and neglect diminishes. These factors include Parental resilience; Social connections; Knowledge of parenting and child development; Concrete support in times of need; and Children’s social and emotional development.

Across the country, in more than 30 states and territories, we and others like us are leading early care and education programs, child welfare departments, public health, social service agencies, and child abuse prevention agencies to use Strengthening Families approach to help build these five Protective Factors. The Protective Factors are informed by extensive, rigorous research, and activities that build them can be built into programs and systems that already exist in every state at little cost. Today, partners in a large variety of settings working with many different populations are exploring ways to apply the approach. Strengthening Families is an approach, not a program model, so the possibilities to incorporate its framework into a range of programs and practices are virtually endless.

As administrators of state Children’s Trust and Prevention Funds and leaders of other state efforts to improve child and family well-being, we support the Administration’s intent to improve the health of Americans and reduce the incidence of preventable illness and disability in the United States.

Nationwide, state Children’s Trust and Prevention Funds administer $100 million each year to support community-based strategies that strengthen families and prevent child maltreatment. Our commitment to evidence-based programs and practices and our work to continue to build evidence regarding what works is compatible with the goals of the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council.

We applaud the National Prevention Council’s efforts and commit to working with the National Alliance of Children’s Trust and Prevention Funds and the Strengthening Families Initiative at the Center for the Study of Social Policy to inform the National Prevention Strategy and offer concrete recommendations that reflect proven and emerging best practices for strengthening families in states and communities.

[1] Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University (2010). The Foundations of Lifelong Health Are Built in Early Childhood. http://www.developingchild.harvard.edu