Families experienced enormous life-altering changes during the COVID-19 pandemic, with disruptions in daily routines, children’s schooling, finances, and personal relationships. The stress has taken a toll on many, and yet a recent survey shows that families also reported positive experiences as they found ways to adapt and strengthen bonds with children.
Chicago—Prevent Child Abuse America (PCA America) announced today two new $25,000 innovation grants, one to focus on preventing human trafficking in New Jersey and another to promote positive parenting through a groundbreaking fatherhood initiative in Ohio. The grants are an integral part of the organization’s ongoing efforts to provide the safe, stable, and nurturing relationships and environments that enable children, families, and entire communities to thrive.
“Prevention happens in partnership, and our robust nationwide state chapter network resides at the heart of our work to ensure that all children and families get what they need to succeed,” explained PCA America President & CEO Dr. Melissa Merrick. “Dedicated state-level leadership and staff, as well as the numerous local partners they collaborate with, allow us to both extend our primary prevention efforts broadly and tailor them to meet the specific needs of diverse communities across the country. For instance, the project spearheaded by our New Jersey chapter addresses the very serious problem of human trafficking in the state.”
Given its proximity to many large cities, New Jersey is a prime target for human traffickers to recruit adolescents. Young girls and boys, targeted under the pretenses of love or a “job opportunity,” are forced and coerced into a dangerous, exploitative and traumatic life. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the problem: experts project an increase in human trafficking due to t
Chicago—Prevent Child Abuse America (PCA America) announced today a $500,000 grant to support efforts that reduce the need for families to become involved with child protection agencies. The award will fund work advancing Thriving Families, Safer Children: A National Commitment to Well-being, an initiative that aims to reshape child welfare in the United States by focusing explicitly on equity and prevention across development, proactively creating the conditions and contexts for strong families and communities across the country.
“Thriving Families, Safer Children leverages partners across the public, private and philanthropic sectors to fundamentally transform a system that currently focuses narrowly on child abuse and neglect after the fact,” explained Dr. Melissa Merrick, president & CEO of PCA America. “Instead, we need to shift our attention to a more proactive and holistic approach that ensures the safe, stable and nurturing environments and relationships which enable children and youth, families and entire communities to thrive—today and for generations to come.”
Thriving Families, Safer Children partners PCA America with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, grantor of the $500,000 award; Casey Family Programs and the United States Children’s Bureau in a tiered project that brings together relevant agencies and stakeholders in competitively selected communit
Chicago—Prevent Child Abuse America (PCA America) announced today that Jennifer Jones (pictured below) will join the organization as its new Chief Strategy Officer, effective February 15. She currently serves as the director of the Change in Mind Institute and the co-director for Safety and Resilience for the Alliance for Strong Families and Communities (which recently announced a merger with the Council on Accreditation).
“Jennifer Jones is a well-respected leader in the areas of brain science, child welfare and child and family well-being, and I’ve had the very good fortune to collaborate with her and the All
Chicago—Prevent Child Abuse America (PCA America), the nation’s oldest and largest nonprofit organization dedicated to the primary prevention of child abuse and neglect, announced today the award of a three-year $1.05 million CDC grant to examine the preventive effects of key public policy strategies, such as paid family leave and child care provisions, on rates of child abuse and neglect and intimate partner violence (IPV).
Violence against children and youth, including child maltreatment and exposure to IPV, is common in communities across the United States and internationally. A review of population-based surveys worldwide in 2016 estimated that approximately one billion children—around half of all children worldwide—experience direct violence annually. Additionally, a 2019 study found a significant amount of overlap in violence in the United States, with 16% of children having experienced four or more adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), including child maltreatment and IPV.
“A successful public health approach to the prevention of child maltreatment and IPV prioritizes strategies that can have the greatest impact on the most people,” explained Dr. Melissa Merrick, president and CEO of Prevent Child Abuse America and co-principal investigator of the grant. “Through effective public policy, we can create the conditions for health, well-being, and prosperity for children and families and can prevent violence in the home before it occurs.”
Research shows that children who experience violence are at incr
Chicago—The U.S. Children’s Bureau, Casey Family Programs, the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Prevent Child Abuse America are partnering to launch a national effort to prove it is possible to fundamentally rethink child welfare by creating the conditions for strong, thriving families where children are free from harm.
This first-of-its-kind effort—Thriving Families, Safer Children: A National Commitment to Well-Being—will work across the public, private and philanthropic sectors to assist jurisdictions in developing more just and equitable systems that benefit all children and families and break harmful intergenerational cycles of trauma and poverty.
“Having invested heavily in elevating the voices of parents and youth with lived experience in child welfare, we now have not only the opportunity but the obligation to act on what they’ve told us they need to stay strong and healthy,” says Jerry Milner, associate commissioner for the Children’s Bureau at the U.S. Administration of Children and Families. “Our four organizations are uniquely prepared and driven to do just that, by transforming child welfare into a child and family well-being system.”
Thriving Families will help select jurisdictions move from traditional, reactive child protection systems to systems designed to proactively support child and family well-being and prevent child maltreatment and unnecessary famil
Chicago—Prevent Child Abuse America (PCA America) announced today that its chapters in seven states—Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, New Jersey, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Virginia—successfully completed the organization’s strength-based chartering process in 2019. Fifteen more chapters—in Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Utah, Wisconsin, Wyoming and Washington, D.C.—are preparing for site visits in 2020, helping to extend the organization’s mission throughout the United States.
“Prevention happens in partnership, and our robust nationwide chapter network resides at the core of the work we do to ensure that all children and families thrive,” explained PCA America President & CEO Dr. Melissa Merrick. “We’re fortunate to have skilled and dedicated leadership and staff in all of these states, and the numerous local partners they collaborate with, which enables us to both extend our primary prevention efforts broadly and tailor them to meet the specific needs of diverse communities across the country.”
During this process, formally called Building Capacity Chartering, PCA America chapters undergo an in-depth self-assessment, combined with on-site interviews and discussions with board members, partners, funders, legislators and others, to evaluate criteria such as the demonstration of a strong mission and consistent brand identity, documentation of sound operational infrastructure and financial resources and evidence of leadership in the statewide scope of influence and activity in child abuse and neglec
Chicago—Prevent Child Abuse America (PCA America), the nation’s oldest and largest nonprofit organization dedicated to the primary prevention of child abuse and neglect, announced today the addition of six new members to its national board of directors: Sanford Bohrer, Molly Campbell, Thomas Carhart, Danielle Laraque-Arena, Jodi Scheurenbrand, and Bernardo Wolfson.
“Prevention happens in partnership, and I’m honored to partner with this distinguished group of talented and respected individuals in creating the conditions for safe, stable and nurturing relationships and environments that help children, families and communities across the country thrive,” explained PCA America President & CEO Dr. Melissa Merrick.
Bohrer is a senior partner in the law firm of Holland & Knight, in the company’s Miami office. He is co-chair of the firm’s media law practice and served for many years as head of the firm’s litigation section’s pro bono practice. He has represented The Miami Herald and Miami New Times for decades, in addition to representing dozens of other broadcasters, authors, and publishers on matters covering the entire spectrum of media law. He is presently teaching “Intolerance and the Media” and “Children and the Media” at the University of Miami’s School of Communications.
Campbell is a 2019 Harvard University Advanced Leadership Initiative fellow and a former director of the Port of New York and New
Chicago—Today, Dr. Melissa Merrick, president and CEO of Prevent Child Abuse America (PCA America) calls on business leaders and policymakers to enact pragmatic strategies that prevent adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). Merrick is the lead author of a new report on ACEs, issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), where she served previously as a subject matter expert for almost nine years.
“Exposure to ACEs is one of the biggest public health crises we confront in this country—at least five of the top 10 leading causes of death in adults are associated with ACEs, including heart disease, stroke and diabetes,” explained Merrick. “We must tackle the enormity of this problem with holistic, cross-sector approaches that actively engage the business community and legislators at the local, state and national levels, in partnership with the medical and human services fields, to prevent the occurrence of ACEs.”
ACEs are defined as potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood (0–17 years) such as experiencing violence, abuse or neglect; witnessing violence in the home and having a family member attempt or die by suicide. Also included are aspects of the child’s environment that can undermine their sense of safety, stability and bonding such as growing up in a household with substance misuse, mental health problems or instability due to pare
Chicago—Prevent Child Abuse America (PCA America) announced today that its signature evidence-based home visiting program, Healthy Families America (HFA), has received the highest rating—“well-supported”—from the Title IV-E Prevention Services Clearinghouse. Developed by the US Department of Health and Human Services in accordance with the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) of 2018, the clearinghouse systematically reviews research and evaluates programs and services intended to provide enhanced support to children and families, including mental health, substance abuse and parenting assistance, and prevent foster care placements nationwide.
The FFPSA, for the first time ever, enables funds typically reserved for “after-the-fact” intervention services to be used for upstream strategies such as home visiting.
“Our model is rooted in science that shows early nurturing relationships are the foundation for healthy development and lifelong well-being,” explained HFA National Director of Operations Kathleen Strader. “We’re pleased that the clearinghouse recognizes the significance and value of our proactive approach and the positive impact it has on children, families, and communities across the country.”
The clearinghouse is an objective, rigorous, and transparent source of information on evidence-based programs and services. More than 360 unique responses from key stakeholders and input from the California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare helped determine the first twelve services and programs considered for review by the clearinghouse, which also includes two other evidence-based home visiting programs, Nurse-Family Partnership and Parents as Teachers.
“A major distinction of our approach is that int
