Child Abuse and Neglect Technical Package

Learn about CDC’s new technical package for use by states and communities to help prevent child abuse.

Child abuse and neglect affect children’s health now and later, and costs to our country are significant. Safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments for all children and families can prevent child abuse and neglect and can help all children reach their full potential. CDC’s Division of Violence Prevention (DVP) created a technical package for states and communities to use in applying the best available evidence in preventing child abuse and neglect. Learn more about CDC’s technical package to prevent child abuse and neglect.

Background

Child abuse and neglect is highly prevalent. Self-report data indicate that at least 1 in 7 children experienced abuse in the last year. The true number of victims is likely higher. Child abuse and neglect is a problem that is rooted in unhealthy relationships and environments. It’s also a problem that we can prevent. For definitions, statistics, and more information about child abuse and neglect, visit CDC’s Child Maltreatment Web pages .

Education is a sector that is vital to the implementation of the child sexual abuse and neglect technical package.

Why create a technical package?

The Division of Violence Prevention (DVP) at CDC works to better understand the problem of child abuse and neglect and to prevent it before it begins. CDC scientists reviewed the prevention literature and considered the best possible evidence available to prevent child abuse and neglect. They identified a select group of strategies that states and communities could implement and described how various sectors could support implementation. Then, “technical packages” were reviewed by grantees and funded partners, federal partners, and other stakeholders.

As a result of this work, DVP recently released Preventing Child Abuse & Neglect: A Technical Package for Policy, Norm, and Programmatic Activities [1 MB] that identifies strategies to help states and communities prioritize prevention activities. These strategies range from a focus on individuals, families, and relationships to broader community and societal change. This range of strategies is needed to better address the interplay between individual-family behavior and broader neighborhood, community, and cultural contexts.

Strategies include those with a focus on preventing child abuse and neglect from happening in the first place, and those focused on lessening the immediate and long-term harms of child abuse and neglect. Strategies are intended to work in combination and reinforce each other. The technical package describes the approaches to advance each strategy and the evidence behind them. DVP also released a technical package to prevent sexual violence and is developing other technical packages to highlight the best available evidence in preventing youth violence, intimate partner violence, and suicide.

This technical package is intended as a resource to guide and inform prevention decision making in communities and states, so that every child has safe, stable nurturing relationships and environments.

How can this technical package be used?

This technical package is intended as a resource to guide and inform prevention decision making in communities and states, so that every child has safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments, and lives in a world where they can thrive. Sectors vital to the implementation of this package include the following:

• Public health
• Education
• Government (federal, state, and local)
• Social services
• Health care services
• Businesses
• Justice
• Housing
• Non-governmental organizations (e.g., faith based, youth-serving)
• Foundations

The hope is that multiple sectors will use the package to take advantage of the best available evidence and to join CDC in preventing child abuse and neglect.

Read about CDC’s technical packages for violence prevention and how you can start implementation in your child abuse and neglect prevention work.