About Us

Our history

• 1972 Founded in Chicago by Donna J. Stone as the Family Achievement Center and a year later convened the first ever national conference on child abuse prevention.
• 1974 The organization’s name was changed to the National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse.
• 1976 The first state chapter is formed in Kansas, and later that year the first nationwide public service campaign is launched in partnership with the Ad Council.
• 1984 Partnered with Marvel Comics to release a Spider-Man comic book focused on sexual abuse, the first in a series of comics to help educate child about child abuse and neglect.
• 1986 Established the National Center on Child Abuse Prevention and published the first 50 State Survey of child abuse and neglect the following year.
• 1992 Healthy Families America is launched as a family support program.
• 1999 The organization’s name is changed to Prevent Child Abuse America, and in partnership with the National Family Support Roundtable the organization received federal funding to support the growth of a national network of parent self-help and mutual support programs which evolved into the Circle of Parents program
• 2005 Received the first of two two-year BECAUSE Kids Count! grants from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which were focused on the state of prevention across the country and how best to enhance the presence and impact of evidence-based programming.
• 2008 The Pinwheels for Prevention campaign is launched nationwide, introducing the pinwheel as the new symbol of child abuse prevention.
• 2011 In February 2011, the United States Department of Health and Human Services named HFA as a proven home visiting model after a thorough and transparent review of the home visiting research literature. That same year we served as one of the founding members the National Movement for America’s Children, which has since evolved into Connect the Dots.