Early Child Care and Education Program
The setting for the CSSP’s Strengthening Families Plan is in early childhood programs. The CSSP chose this approach after doing research on early care and education programs across the country. The researchers found a link between good early childhood education and care and abuse prevention. The Kansas Strengthening Families Plan is adopting this strategy for a number of reasons. These reasons are listed below.
Early childhood programs could be central to the Plan because:
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- Daily contact with parents and children
- Uniquely intimate relationship with families
- A universal approach of positive encouragement and education for families
- An early warning and response system at the first sign of trouble
Early childhood programs can serve critical roles for young parents:
- As a primary source of information and support for young families
- As a gateway to outside services or supports such as health or mental health services, transportation, or education, housing and jobs
- As the key early warning system
What your program can do:
- Use the self-assessment (which looks at how agencies are promoting the protective factors) to identify areas for practice enhancement
- Build effective linkages with child welfare agencies and child abuse prevention advocates
- Educate others on the role early care and education can play in child abuse and neglect prevention
- Use space to welcome parents
- Observation areas
- Dedicated parent space
- Outreach to men
- Develop a strong relationship with a child protection agency
- Develop relationships with other agencies and services
- Develop networks, collaboratives, and partnerships
Using early childhood education to prevent child abuse is:
- A bold and promising departure from conventional prevention strategies
- Supported by both early childhood professionals and child abuse prevention advocates
- More than a collection of good program components. Success hinges on the quality of relationships
