Lessons from the Field in Reducing Child Abuse through Community-Based Collaboration

Learn about what it takes to address child abuse fatalities through a collaborative, community-based approach. For nearly four years, five different sites located across the country have been working to advance child and family well-being systems and shared responsibility in their communities.

Through Child Safety Forward, a demonstration initiative funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office for Victims of Crime, the five sites and Social Current as the initiative’s technical assistance provider, have been applying, testing, and evaluating different strategies. Now in their fourth year, the sites will discuss their successes and lessons learned.

They will share a new model for doing things differently to better support families, keep children safe in their homes, and implement a public health approach that is proactive rather than reactive.

The five jurisdictions include:

• St. Francis Hospital (Hartford, Connecticut)
• Cook County Health (Illinois)
• Indiana Department of Health
• Michigan Department of Health and Human Services
• Sacramento County’s Child Abuse Prevention Council (California)

To learn more about Child Safety Forward and connect with the sites in person, join their workshop at Social Current’s SPARK 2023 conference, Oct. 16-17 in Bethesda, Maryland.

Takeaways

• The core conditions for addressing child fatalities and serious injuries for maltreatment
• Reflections from the five jurisdictions on lessons learned
• How to apply evaluation results toward efforts in other communities to better support families and systems change

Who Should Participate

• Child welfare professionals
• Parents and youth impacted by child and family serving systems
• Attorneys
• Public health professionals
• Educators
• Pediatricians
• Law enforcement
• Media