“Circles of Caring: What Child Abuse Prevention Looks Like”
Dec 18 2009By guestblogger Jim McKay, State Coordinator, Prevent Child Abuse West Virginia
If you’re working in social services, do you ever get tired of trying to explain your work to your father-in-law who doesn’t really get what you do? Do you have trouble explaining how everyone has a role to play in supporting child development, and in the process how we prevent child abuse and neglect? Do you struggle to define the word “prevention”, so that people understand it’s more than calling CPS when you suspect child abuse?
These are the very dilemmas that we have struggled with at Prevent Child Abuse West Virginia as we implement programs and build community support to achieve our mission to eliminate child maltreatment in WV. It is hard to get people involved in our cause when they don’t understand that child abuse can be prevented or recognize how their efforts can make a difference.
One reason we love the Strengthening Families initiative is because it offers a framework for our work to talk about what we want to build (family protective factors) versus what we want to prevent (child abuse and neglect). At the same time, there are moments when the jargon of “protective factors” can be misunderstood.
To help us tell a new story of prevention (and also explain what we do to our fathers-in-law), we have produced a new DVD and video entitled, “Circles of Caring: What Child Abuse Prevention Looks Like”, which is embedded below. The video is our best effort to interpret the latest research about reframing from the Frameworks Institute blended with the Center for the Study of Social Policy’s (CSSP) protective factor framework.
We hope the video will provide some answers to the questions, “What does child abuse prevention look like?” and “Is it really possible to prevent child abuse?”, in a way that is easy to understand for many audiences.
We appreciate the generous support of the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation, which provided funding for the production of “Circles of Caring”, as well as CSSP for providing the research and framework on which this video is based. Most of all, we appreciate the thriving national network of Strengthening Families supporters, professionals, and child abuse prevention advocates who have shared their talents and expertise to help make this video a reality. It is very rewarding to work as part of a growing national movement to support children and their families in such a meaningful way.
Additional copies of the Circles of Caring DVD are available for purchase for $25 (which includes shipping and handling). Please visit our website at www.preventchildabusewv.org or follow us on Twitter, @team4wvchildren for more information about our efforts to strengthen families and communities in West Virginia.
