Research over the last two decades has consistently confirmed that providing education and support services to parents around the time of a baby's birth--and continuing for months or years afterwards--significantly reduces the risk of child abuse and contributes to positive, healthy, child-rearing practices. Families receiving this type of intensive home visitor service also show other positive changes such as consistent use of preventive health services, increased high school completion rates (for teen parents), higher employment rates, lower welfare use, and fewer pregnancies.

According to a report released by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, "the earliest years of a child's life are society's most neglected age group, yet new evidence confirms that these years lay the foundation for all that follows".

In 1994, there were more than 3.1 million cases of suspected child abuse reported by CPS agencies and more than 3 children a day died from child abuse and neglect (Wiese and Daro, 1995). Yet, typically more than half of child abuse fatalities are UNKNOWN to child protective services.

Child abuse prevention programs save money. For every $3 spent on prevention, we save at least $6 that might have been spent on child welfare services, special education services, medical care, foster care, counseling, and housing juvenile offenders (Bryant and Daro, 1994).

Programs that work with new parents stand the greatest chance of success for several reasons:

  1. New parents are eager and excited to learn about caring for their babies;
  2. They model and support positive parenting practices, before bad patterns are established;
  3. Most physical abuse and neglect occurs among young children under the age of two;
  4. Almost all child fatalities due to child maltreatment occur among children under the age of five with approximately 44 percent occurring to infants under the age of one (Wiese and Daro, 1995);
  5. The most important time for children to be immunized from childhood disease is during the first two years of life; and
  6. The most critical brain development occurs during the first few years of life.
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  This file was last modified on Saturday, 25-Oct-97 07:42:03 CDT