Prevention

A comprehensive child abuse prevention framework is a PROACTIVE framework: a proactive child abuse prevention framework helps to identify and prevent child abuse before it occurs, or ensures its earliest possible detection and reporting. The elements of such a framework are:

• Policies and procedures
• Screening, hiring and criminal background checks
• Codes of conduct and monitoring
• Safe physical environments and safe technology
• Responding and reporting
• Education and training (for adults and children)

This report presents these elements in turn, and provides information and detail about what they are, how they prevent child maltreatment, the requirements and best practices standards that make them effective, the strategies and tools that can be used to create and sustain them, and guidance about how to tailor and incorporate them into Massachusetts YSOs of various sizes and populations in order to maximize their effectiveness. Additional elements to be discussed that support the effectiveness of prevention frameworks and lend themselves to their sustainability include:

• Child protection teams
• Community partnerships
• Measurement, analysis, self-audits and sustainment actions
• Communication