A better start: Child maltreatment prevention as a public health priority

Date

2010

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Zero to Three

Abstract

Description

Imagine a community where all of the adults who interact with children parents, family members, child care providers, teachers, doctors, nurses, clergy, and neighbors actively engage in preventing child maltreatment before an incident of abuse or neglect occurs. Imagine a community where there is a wide continuum of prevention activities that extends well beyond providing direct services to individual families; a continuum that includes public education efforts to change social norms and behavior, neighborhood activities that engage parents, and public policies and institutions that support families. This type of broad-based, communitywide approach is often the purview of public health systems, because public health strategies, by definition, strive to promote the health and well-being of populations as a whole.

Keywords

Child maltreatment, Prevention

Citation

DOI