The National Foundation to End Child Abuse and Neglect held a press conference on Tuesday, September 25, at the National Press Club to announce their formation and the kick off of their campaign to take on child abuse. The foundation’s goal is to support the growth of research, training and prevention programs through a developing grant program. One of their first efforts will be around the production of a series of papers on child abuse and neglect research, training, clinical care and prevention.
The Tuesday event feature a review of recent polling on public attitudes. Mary Wooley, President of Research! America said that polling indicated that when people were asked about the most serious problems facing the country, child abuse was listed as the fourth highest problem with; Drug Addiction at 67%, Cancer 55 %, Nutrition 46% and Child Abuse at 42%. When asked if child abuse and neglect were a local problem within their communities 23% felt very strongly that it was a problem in their communities with another 35 percent saying is was somewhat a problem.
Dr Howard Dubowitz, Center for Families, University of MD, discussed the potential for using primary care pediatricians as an important way to focus on prevention if there are appropriate and effective screening and assessment tools.
Other panelists included Christina Bethell, Bloomberg school of Public Health, Valerie Maholmes, Eunice Kennedy Shriver NIH Child Health and Human Development, and Marva Hammonds, Casey Family Program who discussed her first years working in child protection and how we harmed families based on what we did not know.
Richard Krugman and Lori Poland, Co-Founders of the Foundation ended the event with a “#GiveFive” campaign which encourages people to give five (in recognition of the five children who die from child abuse each day) by giving five dollars, contacting five friends, or sharing a picture of your raised hand with five outstretched fingers on social media using #GiveFive.
