Best prevention means aligning resources, coordinating efforts

Child abuse prevention resources must focus on evidence-based intervention strategies and aggregating sound data, but the buck doesn’t stop there. Enhancing safety and resilience for at-risk children crosses many disciplines, including medicine, public health, education, childcare, law enforcement, child protection and foster and adoptive families.

The best prevention starts with aligning resources, coordinating efforts and engineering a safe and healthy environment to strengthen families and communities at risk. Vulnerable children require a deep investment, and police, hospitals, schools, foundations and social service agencies are only the first to help in the prevention of child abuse. Each of these organizations and coalitions gives vital support to children and families at risk, but the bottom line is: Invest in our children today, and we’ll all reap the benefits for years to come.

Editorial: Stiffen child abuse penalty (and) New ways to reduce child abuse

Abstract

Ninety-one child sex offenders were interviewed about the methods they used to target children, the age range of their victims, how they selected children and maintained them as victims, and what suggestions they had for preventing child sexual abuse. Offenders were selected from treatment programs, probation, special hospitals, and prisons. They were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. Results indicate that offenders gained access to children through caretaking, such as babysitting; targeted children by using bribes, gifts and games; used force, anger, threats, and bribes to ensure their continuing compliance; and systematically desensitized children through touch, talk about sex, and persuasion. Nearly half the offenders had no bad feelings about sexually abusing children. The implications for prevention programs are discussed.

Parental Resilience: Protective & Promotive Factors

Numerous researchers have concluded that how parents respond to stressors is much more important than the stressor itself in determining the outcomes for themselves and their children. Parents are more likely to achieve healthy, favorable outcomes if they are resilient. Resilience is the process of managing stress and functioning well even when faced with challenges, adversity and trauma. Some stressors parents face can be managed easily so that problems get resolved; for example, calling a relative or friend to pick-up a child from school when a parent is delayed. But some stressors cannot be easily resolved. For example, parents cannot “fix” their child’s developmental disability, erase the abuse they suffered as a child or be able to move out of a crime-plagued neighborhood. Rather, parents are resilient when they are able to call forth their inner strength to proactively meet personal challenges and those in relation to their child, manage adversities, heal the effects of trauma and thrive given the unique characteristics and circumstances of their family. READ MORE HERE