Healthy Families America centers across the nation are helping to spread the word that child abuse is preventable. As Prevent Child Abuse America (PCA) continue their work through trying times, we are growing a better tomorrow for all children, together. This April, it is more important than ever to help positive childhood experiences take root in your community and across the country.

Staying safe while spinning together!

Plant a pinwheel to show your support for growing a better tomorrow for all children, together. Since 2008, PCA’s signature Pinwheels for Prevention gardens have been raising awareness and funding for policies and programs that enable children, families, and entire communities to thrive. Until we can plant pinwheels in person again, join us online at https://pinwheels.preventchildabuse.org/

Help us and Prevent Child Abuse America on Wednesday, April 21, 2021, the second annual Digital Advocacy Day, and we need you! Every child is filled with tremendous promise, and we have a shared duty to foster their potential. That means shoring up the ways we support families.

The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) represents a cornerstone of our nation’s system for both preventing and responding to incidents of child abuse and neglect. Created in 1974, CAPTA reflects the entire continuum of supports to children, parents, and families, from primary prevention strategies at the heart of Title II (Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention [CBCAP] grants) to the identification and treatment of abuse and neglect in Title I (state grants). Through CAPTA reauthorization, the current 117th Congress has an extraordinary opportunity to strengthen community-based supports to families to prevent child abuse and neglect.

Last year, CAPTA reauthorization passed the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously and in the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions with bipartisan support. Additionally, a Senate bipartisan “Dear Colleague” letter, signed by 28 U.S. Senators, nearly one-third of the Senate, advocated for robust funding increases in CAPTA appropriations.

Unfortunately, CAPTA reauthorization was never considered on the Senate floor, and ultimately Congress never passed it into law. Congress did, however, increase funding for CBCAP, appropriating a $16 million increase for the first time in 15 years and an additional $5 million increase the following year. This still only funds primary prevention at 82 cents per child per year, resulting in a great deal of unmet need. 

We all have an obligation to protect our nation’s children.

Due to the pandemic, parents and caregivers are confronted with extraordinary challenges, including decreased wages or loss of work, lack of adequate childcare, and housing instability, among other hardships that can compound the day-to-day stress of raising children.

Given the unprecedented challenges the pandemic has inflicted on America’s families, there is an urgent need for services and supports made possible by the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA).

Access to these services and supports can be instrumental in lowering parent and caregiver stress and incidences of child abuse by providing  families the support they need before harm occurs.

When we fail to prevent abuse and neglect from occurring, it has tremendous consequences for children, families, communities, and our nation. Exposure to violence at a young age can heighten the risk for physical health issues later on in life, such as smoking, alcoholism, and drug abuse and addiction; mental health disorders; and criminal behavior.  

More information at https://preventchildabuse.org/2021-digital-advocacy-day/