Abstract
In searching for a “disruptive” new paradigm to prevent child abuse, we are drawn to an older approach with unfulfilled promise. In 1993, the United States Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect published their report Neighbors Helping Neighbors: A New National Strategy for the Protection of Children. The top priority recommendation of the Board was to develop programs that facilitated the development and safety of neighborhoods by establishing Prevention Zones to improve social and physical environments with high rates of child maltreatment. This paper explores how Prevention Zones might be re-imagined today, integrated with services like home-visiting and medical homes, and applied to serious child maltreatment such as abusive head trauma.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
AAP Council on Community Pediatrics. (2009). The role of preschool home-visiting programs in improving children’s developmental and health outcomes. Pediatrics, 123, 598–603.
AAP Medical Home Initiatives for Children with Special Needs Project Advisory Committee. (2002). The medical home. Pediatrics, 110, 184–186.
APSAC Prevention Taskforce. (2010). Practice guidelines: Integrating child maltreatment prevention into professional practice. Elmhurst: American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children.
Chalk, R., & King, P. A. (Eds.). (1998). Violence in families: Assessing prevention and treatment programs. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Choudhary, A. K., Servaes, S., Slovis, T. L., Palusci, V. J., Hedlund, G. L., Narang, S. K., Moreno, J. A., Dias, M. S., Christian, C. W., Nelson Jr., M. D., Silvera, V. M., Palasis, S., Raissaki, M., Rossi, A., & Offiah, A. C. (2018). Consensus statement on abusive head trauma in infants and young children. Pediatric Radiology, 48, 1048–1065.
Coulton, C. J., Richter, F. G., Korbin, J., Crampton, D., & Spilsbury, J. C. (2018). Understanding trends in neighborhood child maltreatment rates: A three-wave panel study 1990-2010. Child Abuse and Neglect, 84, 170–181.
Dias, M. S., Smith, K., deGuehery, K., Mazur, P., Li, V., & Shaffer, M. L. (2005). Preventing abusive head trauma among infants and young children: A hospital-based, parent education program. Pediatrics, 115, e470–e477.
Dias, A., Mooren, T., & Kleber, R. J. (2018). Public health actions to mitigate long-term consequences of child maltreatment. Journal of Public Health Policy, 39, 294–303.
Dubowitz, H., Lane, W. G., Semiatin, J. N., & Magder, L. S. (2012). The SEEK model of pediatric primary care: Can child maltreatment be prevented in a low-risk population? Academic Pediatrics, 12, 259–268.
Emery, C. R., Trung, H. N., & Wu, S. (2015). Neighborhood informal social control and child maltreatment: A comparison of protective and punitive approaches. Child Abuse & Neglect, 41, 158–169.
Fortson, B. L., Klevens, J., Merrick, M. T., Gilbert, L. K., & Alexander, S. P. (2016). Preventing child abuse and neglect: A technical package for policy, norm, and programmatic activities. Atlanta: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Garbarino, J., & Kostelny, K. (1992). Child maltreatment as a community problem. Child Abuse and Neglect, 16, 455.
Garbarino, J., & Sherman, D. (1980). High-risk neighborhoods and high-risk families. Child Development, 51, 188.
Hall, C. M., Runion, M. C., & Perkins, D. F. (2017). School-based prevention of and intervention in child maltreatment: Current practice in the United States and future directions. In L. Dixon, D. F. Perkins, C. Hamilton-Giachritsis, & L. A. Craig (Eds.), The Wiley handbook of what works in child maltreatment (pp. 367–384). Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell.
Helfer, R. E. (1987). The perinatal period, a window of opportunity for enhancing parent-infant communication: An approach to prevention. Child Abuse & Neglect, 2, 565–579.
Herrenkohl, T. I., Leeb, R. T., & Higgins, D. (2016). The public health model of child maltreatment prevention. Trauma Violence & Abuse, 17(4), 363–365.
Kelleher, K., Reece, J., & Sandel, M. (2018). The healthy neighborhood, healthy families initiative. Pediatrics, 142(3), e20180261.
Kim, B., & Maguire-Jack, K. (2015). Community interaction and child maltreatment. Child Abuse & Neglect, 41, 146–157.
Kimbrough-Melton, R. J., & Melton, G. B. (2015). “Someone will notice, and someone will care”: How to build strong communities for children. Child Abuse & Neglect, 41, 67–78.
Klevens, J., Luo, F., Xu, L., Peterson, C., & Latzman, N. E. (2016). Paid family leave's effect on hospital admissions for pediatric abusive head trauma. Injury Prevention, 22(6), 442–445.
Krugman, R. D. (1995). Future directions in preventing child abuse. Child Abuse & Neglect, 19(3), 273–279.
Lopes, N. R. L., & Williams, L. C. A. (2016). Pediatric abusive head trauma prevention initiatives: A literature review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 19(5), 555–566.
McDonell, J. R., Ben-Arieh, A., & Melton, G. B. (2015). Strong communities for children: Results of a multi-year community-based initiative to protect children from harm. Child Abuse & Neglect, 41, 79–96.
McLeigh, J. D., & Melton, G. B. (2015). Children’s safety in community context. Child Abuse & Neglect, 41, 1–2.
McLeigh, J. D., Katz, C., Davidson-Arad, B., & Ben-Arieh, A. (2015a). The cultural adaptation of a community-based child maltreatment prevention initiative. Family Process, 56(2), 393–407. https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12193.
McLeigh, J. D., McDonell, J. R., & Melton, G. B. (2015b). Community differences in the implementation of strong communities for children. Child Abuse & Neglect, 41, 97–112.
Molnar, B. E., Goerge, R. M., Gilsanz, P., Hill, A., Subramanian, S. V., Holton, J. K., Duncan, D. T., & Beardslee, W. R. (2016). Neighborhood-level social processes and substantiated cases of child maltreatment. Child Abuse & Neglect, 51, 41–53.
Muñoz, A. C., Olmos, J. A. R., & Garcia, N. G. (2018). Abusive head trauma and the strategies for its prevention. In A. L. Abdalá et al. (Eds.), Child abuse: Harm and solutions. Hauppauge: Nova Science Publishers.
Palusci, V. J. (2017). Child protection and the development of child abuse pediatrics in New York City. Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, 52, 159–167.
Palusci, V. J., & Covington, T. M. (2014). Child maltreatment deaths in the U.S. National Child Death Review case reporting system. Child Abuse & Neglect, 38(1), 25–36.
Palusci, V. J., & Vandervort, F. E. (2014). 28. Universal reporting laws and child maltreatment report rates. Children and Youth Services Review, 38, 20–28.
Rushton, F. E., Byrne, W. W., Darden, P. M., & McLeigh, J. (2015). Enhancing child safety and well-being through pediatric group well-child care and home visitation: The well baby plus program. Child Abuse & Neglect, 41, 198–189.
Shonkoff, J. P., & Garner, A. S. (2012). The lifelong effects of early childhood adversity and toxic stress. Pediatrics, 129(1), E232–E246.
Showers, J. (2001). Chapter seventeen: Preventing shaken baby syndrome. In S. Lazoritz & V. J. Palusci (Eds.), Shaken baby syndrome: A multidisciplinary approach (pp. 349–365). Hayworth Press.
Stagner, M. W., & Lansing, J. (2009). Progress toward a prevention perspective. The Future of Children, 19(2), 19–38.
Stolz, H. E., Brandon, D. J., Wallace, H. S., & Tucker, E. A. (2017). Preventing shaken baby syndrome: Evaluation of a multiple-setting program. Journal of Family Issues, 38(16), 2346–2367.
Thompson, R. A. (2015). Social support and child protection: Lessons learned and learning. Child Abuse & Neglect, 41, 19–29.
Tomison, A. M., & Wise, S. (1999). Community-based approaches in preventing child maltreatment. Issues in Child Abuse Prevention, 11, 1–19.
U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect. (1991). Creating caring communities: Blueprint for an effective federal policy on child abuse and neglect. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect. (1993). Neighbors helping neighbors: A new national strategy for the protection of children. Fourth report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Children’s Bureau. (2018). Child maltreatment 2016. Available from https://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb/research-data-technology/statistics-research/child-maltreatment. Accessed 23 Nov 2018.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2003). Emerging practices in the prevention of child abuse and neglect. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families. (2018). Reshaping child welfare in the United States to focus on strengthening families through primary prevention of child maltreatment and unnecessary parent-child separation. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (ACYF-CB-IM-18-05).
van Dijken, M. W., Stams, G. J. J. M., & de Winter, M. (2016). Can community-based interventions prevent child maltreatment? Children and Youth Services Review, 61, 49–158.
World Health Organization. (2016). Inspire: Seven strategies for ending violence against children. Geneva.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of Interest
On behalf of all authors, the corresponding author states that there is no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Roygardner, D., Palusci, V.J. & Hughes, K.N. Advancing Prevention Zones: Implementing Community-Based Strategies to Prevent Child Maltreatment and Promote Healthy Families. Int. Journal on Child Malt. 3, 81–91 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42448-019-00039-0
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s42448-019-00039-0