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Journal Issue: Preventing Child Maltreatment Volume 19 Number 2 Fall 2009

Creating Community Responsibility for Child Protection: Possibilities and Challenges
Authors: Deborah A. Daro Kenneth A. Dodge

Introduction

Depending on their composition and quality, neighborhoods can either foster children’s healthy development or place them at significant risk for physical, psychological, or developmental harm. The National Survey on Children’s Health estimates that almost 75 percent of the nation’s children live in neighborhoods that their parents describe as highly or moderately supportive, while the balance live in neighborhoods judged by their parents to have either moderately low (20 percent) or very low support (6 percent).1 Although some of this variation can be attributed to self-selection (that is, economic conditions and available options may direct high-risk families into neighborhoods that are less supportive), empirical studies indicate that neighborhoods do have an effect on family and child behaviors and outcomes, including parenting behaviors.2

Child abuse prevention efforts have historically focused on developing and disseminating interventions that target individual parents.3 Early work in the field placed primary emphasis on identifying parents at risk for or engaged in abusive or neglectful behaviors. Once identified, these parents would be provided with knowledge, skill-building opportunities, and assistance to overcome their personal limitations. Such strategies were considered the most direct and efficient path to preventing maltreatment. More recently, however, attention has shifted from directly improving the skills of parents to creating environments that facilitate a parent’s ability to do the right thing. It is increasingly recognized that environmental forces can overwhelm even well-intended parents, that communities can support parents in their role, and that public expenditures might be most cost-beneficial if directed toward community strategies. Some of these strategies seek to expand public services and resources available in a community by instituting new services, streamlining service delivery processes, or fostering greater collaboration among local service providers. Other strategies focus on altering the social norms that govern personal interactions among neighbors, parent-child relationships, and personal and collective responsibility for child protection. In each case, the goal is to build communities with a rich array of formal and informal resources and a normative cultural context that is capable of fostering positive child and youth development.

We begin our inquiry into community-based efforts to prevent child maltreatment by examining the theoretical frameworks of the new approach. We then explore five different community prevention efforts and summarize the empirical evidence evaluating their efficacy. Although not an exhaustive sample, these five initiatives are representative of efforts under way in many states to reduce maltreatment risk or enhance child development. After examining the unique challenges posed by community-based strategies to address abuse and neglect, we conclude by discussing key lessons learned and considering the likely financial and political benefits of embracing community-wide change to achieve measurable reductions in child maltreatment.