Since its establishment ten years ago, our National Center on Child Abuse Prevention Research has focused on furthering understanding of child maltreatment and its prevention, developing and evaluating prevention strategies, and building a research network. Over the last decade, our increased understanding of the complex causes of child maltreatment has helped us identify promising solutions to the devastating problem of child abuse.

This year the Center again conducted its Annual Fifty State Survey and Public Opinion Poll. As has been true for the past decade, these surveys cover a wide range of issues regarding child abuse and its prevention. The Fifty State Survey provides the most timely information available on the number of child abuse reports and fatalities nationwide. It supplies information about trends that positively or negatively affect the problem, such as changes in funding and services, increased unemployment, and single parent status. It tells us which children are most at risk for serious injury or death and lists the factors that often lead to abuse. The Public Opinion Poll gathers information about the public's awareness of and involvement in child abuse prevention efforts. Using the timely information gleaned from both polls, NCPCA and its chapters help educate the public about current trends in recognizing and reporting abuse as well as shifts in public attitudes about child abuse and its prevention.

The Center is continuing to implement a comprehensive assessment of the Ounce of Prevention's Center for Successful Child Development (CSCD), also known as the Beethoven Project, with funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation. This family support and early childhood development program located in Chicago's Robert Taylor public housing complex offers a unique opportunity to examine the effectiveness of preventive services with the most challenged population. Data are collected from CSCD participants and their children at the following stages: intake, six months after intake, and twelve months after intake. Outcomes examined include parent-child interaction, child development, and levels of social support. A final report summarizing this effort will be available at the end of 1996.

In 1995, the Center completed data collection for a three year grant funded by the Freddie Mac Foundation to assess current state efforts in the area of home visitation and family support. The final report, available in the spring of 1996, will identify those states most in need of parent education and support programs and summarize the growth of the HFA movement over the past three years.

Through a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Center has developed a research network, consisting of more than 50 members, for evaluators of HFA pilot sites and other intensive home visitation initiatives across the country. To increase knowledge about ways to provide the most effective delivery of services, the network is establishing standards for measuring the quality, comparability, and relevance of evaluations, to assure accurate comparison and contrast of findings across programs and populations. Specifically, the network is developing standardized indentification procedures to describe the needs of HFA recipients, evaluating the characteristics of a successful home visitor, and seeking to expand resources to support ongoing evaluations. This grant offers an excellent opportunity for researchers to assess individual programs and to address a broad range of methodological and policy concerns facing all HFA sites.

As evidenced by the goals of the network, assuring the adequate flow of information is an important component of all research. It is particularly important in the area of HFA sites and activities where program expansion and the accumulation of new knowledge is rapid. Center staff, in partnership with several members of the research network and others familiar with computer-based management information systems, is developing a Program Management Information System that will allow NCPCA to track the overall HFA initiative. Once in place, this system will collect uniform information about each of the sites' structure and staff as well as the characteristics of families being served. Information to be collected will include the level of program funding, the program's capacity, the number of families served, and the kinds of services provided.

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