Child Abuse Prevention Awareness and Action

April 10, 2017 – During the month of April, in honor of National Child Abuse Prevention Month, people across the country come together to raise awareness about the need to better focus resource and initiative on child abuse and neglect prevention.

Child abuse and neglect are two of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) identified by the CDC as contributing to a variety of poor outcomes including costly future health problems. Get ready for the brain science segment of this blog. When young children experience adversity or trauma, their brains make more neural connections in the areas of the brain that control fear, anxiety and impulsiveness and they make fewer connections in the areas that control reasoning, planning and behavioral control. In effect, ACEs are wiring children’s brains to be more apt to respond to life circumstances impulsively through fear and anxiety rather than reasoning and control. This manifests in behaviors in adolescence that often lead to increases in school and community discipline and school failure. In adulthood, the stress on the body from this physical reaction to trauma results in increased risks of serious health problems like diabetes and heart failure.

Whew. Seems like it would make a lot of sense to try to stop these adverse experiences, including child abuse or neglect, from happening in the first place. Saving not only social costs for children, families and communities, but real dollars in the educational, justice and health systems. The cost-avoidance research is convincing and growing.

In fact, many people are already convinced. The fields of child welfare, mental health and juvenile justice have been working on better recognizing behaviors borne of trauma and building interventions that address those behaviors more appropriately for many years. Communities around Michigan, led by initiatives spearheaded by the United Way, Easter Seals and others are working to improve system responses to trauma as well.

The Michigan Association of Health Plans launched the Michigan ACE Initiative in late March intending to support current efforts by building more public awareness of the impact of ACEs, our ability to counteract them with proven interventions and the urgency of devoting more public and private resources to prevent them. Michigan’s Children co-chairs the Initiative’s advisory committee and is excited to re-affirm hard work around the state and help to mobilize more champions to marshal resources necessary to prevent ACEs and intervene more effectively when they do occur.

We are also glad to be working closely with our Prevent Child Abuse America Michigan co-chapter lead, the Children’s Trust Fund and other local partners on Child Abuse Prevention Month activities, messaging and action. Despite unparalleled evidence of the costs of failing to act, Michigan has disinvested almost entirely from abuse and neglect prevention programs.

Join us in celebrating Child Abuse Awareness Month by taking advantage of new opportunities to build champions for ACE prevention work at the community, state and federal levels and to let Michigan policymakers know that our lack of resource commitment is unacceptable. Supporting community initiatives and investing in proven practice is what is required to avoid the costly results of ACEs.

– Michele Corey, Vice President for Programs, Michigan’s Children