Child Maltreatment Prevention

Key Protective Factors

The Protective Factors promote the health and well-being of children and families and reduce the chances of child abuse
and neglect:

1. Nurturing and attachment – Providing affection, respectful communication, listening, consistent expectations, and safe opportunities that promote independence and encourage curiosity about the world
2. Knowledge of parenting for child and youth development – Understanding child development and parenting strategies that support physical, cognitive, language, social and emotional development
3. Parental resilience – Managing stress and functioning well when faced with challenges, adversity, and trauma
4. Social connections – Positive relationships that provide emotional, informational, instrumental, and spiritual support
5. Concrete supports for parents – Access to concrete support and services that address a family’s needs and help minimum stress caused by challenges
6. Social and emotional competence of children – Family and child interactions can help children develop the ability to communicate clearly, recognize and regulate their emotions and establish and maintain relationships

Colorado Strengthening Families Network

FRCA co-hosts the Colorado Strengthening Families Network, a quarterly online learning community for professionals across sectors to stay on top of new research and best practices related to the protective factors.

Upcoming Meetings

2024 Meeting dates coming soon.

Essentials for Childhood

In partnership with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, FRCA was the Essentials for Childhood Community Norms State Intermediary from 2018 to 2023. The project, supported with funds from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, served to prevent child maltreatment in five pilot communities by addressing three community norms:

• Help-seeking with parenting
• Accessing food
• Collective prosperity focused on the narrative about who is responsible in supporting families to prevent child maltreatment.

These norms will support the parallel efforts of local public health partners to strengthen economic support for families both at the level of creating policy and at the level of families engaging with supports.