Melissa T. Merrick, PhD, is President and CEO of Prevent Child Abuse America (PCA America), the nation’s oldest and largest nonprofit organization dedicated to the primary prevention of child abuse and neglect.
At Prevent Child Abuse America, we work hard to realize our vision of a world where all children grow up happy, healthy, and prepared to succeed in supportive families and communities.
You can influence public policy. Advocacy happens in many different ways, but at its core advocacy is about raising awareness, building and leveraging relationships, and educating others around the issues and policies that matter to you.
By donating to Prevent Child Abuse America, you are helping to prevent child abuse before it happens. Click through to learn exactly how your donation will impact our children’s futures, and how you can get involved!
Prevent Child Abuse America is dedicated to ensuring all children, families and communities live in safe, stable, supportive, nurturing environments that are equitable, inclusive, fair, free of violence and the threat of violence. PCA America actively works to strengthen the foundations of love, safety and support that enable all our nation’s children to thrive and succeed.
Prevent Child Abuse America applauds the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) in a 7 –2 decision today. By keeping this law intact, Native American tribal leadership retains its sovereignty in child welfare cases that involve the placement and adoption of Native children.
At PCA America, we know that family involvement in the child welfare system is stressful and challenging
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.
On November 7, the United Nations declared November 18 as the World Day for the Prevention of, and Healing from Child Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Violence. The resolution, which was sponsored by Sierra Leone and Nigeria and co-sponsored by more than 120 countries, was adopted by consensus and a bang of the gavel by the assembly’s acting president, which was greeted with loud applause. Following the action, H.E., Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia, Permanent Observer of the Holy See United Nations, New York addressed the Assembly expressing appreciation for the UN’s action, and the full support of the Vatican State for the newly adopted World Day.
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
There has been a lot of discussion over the past couple of weeks on new child poverty data that show drastic and steady declines. In a New York Times piece citing the US Census Bureau and the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University stated:
Prevent Child Abuse America (PCA America) and Healthy Families America (HFA) are pleased to endorse the Jackie Walorski Maternal and Child Home Visiting Reauthorization Act of 2022. We thank the leaders of the Committee on Ways and Means and Energy and Commerce Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives for their dedicated bipartisan work to support and strengthen families through this reauthorization of the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program.