MONTHLY EDUCATION INITIATIVE

January is All Babies Cry Awareness Month

Child maltreatment results in significant individual, family, and societal costs. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that lifetime medical costs of child maltreatment reported in 2008 will be approximately $124 billion with total societal costs reaching $585 billion (Fang, Brown, Florence, & Mercy, 2012). Maltreatment prevention within state child welfare agencies has become increasingly focused on building the specific family protective factors originally described by Horton and colleagues in 2003 (Horton, 2003; The Center for the Study of Social Policy, 2011). These protective factors, forming the basis of the Strengthening Families Approach (SFA), are as follows: nurturing and attachment, parental resilience, social connections, concrete support in times of need, and knowledge of parenting and child development and social and emotional competence of children (Figure 1). Research has established that when these factors are present in families, there is less likelihood of abuse and neglect (Daro & Donnelly, 2002).

For more information please visit: https://www.clickforbabies.org/toolkit.php

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