Today, December 23rd, 2022, the 117th Congress passed a legislative spending package funding the government through the end of its fiscal year until September 30, 2023. The Omnibus bill includes priorities of importance to Prevent Child Abuse America as it provides critical investments and support to families and children.
As organizations committed to children’s health and wellness, we are often asked how to prevent child abuse and neglect. With 50 years of prevention experience, research, and boots-on-the-ground prevention programming, Prevent Child Abuse America (PCA America) is poised to partner with Illinois’ top-ranking children’s hospital, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, to stop violence in families and communities that negatively impact children. We know prevention is possible. This is not just a slogan, but a clarion call to changemakers – lawmakers, businesses, community leaders, and individuals – across our country who care about stopping life-altering abuse, neglect, and family violence. The term ‘domestic violence’ is used to refer to partner violence but the term can also encompass child or elder abuse, or abuse by a member of a household.
PCA America and Lurie Children’s Hospital have united this month, Domestic Violence Awareness Month, to help spread the word that domestic violence is preventable. Many studies have found an association between intimate partner violence (IPV) and child abuse within the same household, imparti
This month, the Chicagoland area and the entire nation mourns the loss of numerous lives and the injuries of many others in what can only be described as senseless acts of violence this Independence Day weekend. The understandable outrage and profound sadness following the mass shootings that occurred not only on Chicago’s South Side and in nearby Highland Park, Illinois, but also around the country, are feelings that we at Prevent Child Abuse America share. As a national organization headquartered in Chicago, all of us at PCA America feel the weight of these tragedies, and we stand in solidarity with our friends and neighbors.
What a heavy week it is for our nation and communities. Words are not enough to express our collective grief, and our hearts are with the families of the victims and the entire community in Uvalde, Texas. As a mother, I’m angry and frustrated and so sad (all the feelings, really), knowing that these events and the tragic loss of lives did not have to happen. This could have been prevented if we truly implemented a comprehensive approach to preventing gun violence.
Prevention starts with partnership. As part of Prevent Child Abuse America’s 50th anniversary in 2022, we are bringing together organizations and institutions who are committed to working across sectors to develop more just and equitable systems that benefit all children and families and break harmful intergenerational cycles of trauma and poverty.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton recently issued an opinion classifying medically necessary gender-affirming care to youth as child abuse. AG Paxton’s statement stands in direct opposition to the evidence-based care recognized by numerous professional societies, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, Endocrine Society, and American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
As the world’s elite athletes prepare for the Winter Olympics to commence this Friday in Beijing, a new, independent report prepared by the Game Over Commission to Protect Child Athletes and CHILD USA makes a clear call for changes in the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, from the top down.
Prevent Child Abuse America supports the following historic investments in families included in the Build Back Better Act.
Courage. Bravery. Resilience. On Wednesday, September, 15, Olympic gymnasts McKayla Maroney, Simone Biles, Maggie Nichols, and Aly Raisman testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding the FBI’s egregious handling of their initial reports of sexual abuse by then USA gymnastics team doctor, Larry Nassar. Their strength and courage is paving the way for other victims of sexual abuse to come forward, bring abuse into the light of day, and highlighting the gross failures of our youth serving systems in protecting children from harm. To these women and the countless other victims of sexual abuse, we see you, we hear you, we believe you, and we are doing all that we can to ensure that sexual abuse never occurs in the first place.
Sixteen states are considering legislation that would restrict physicians from providing medically necessary gender-affirming care to youth, and one state recently enacted such a law. Several of these bills would also criminalize parents who affirm their children’s gender identity, defining such affirmation as child abuse. These laws stand in direct opposition to the evidence-based care recognized by numerous professional societies, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, Endocrine Society, and American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
