August 14, 2009

Creating Community Responsibility for Child Protection: Possibilities and Challenges

Deborah Daro and Kenneth Dodge observe that efforts to prevent child abuse have focused on directly improving the skills of parents who are at risk for maltreatment. But, as experts increasingly recognize that negative forces within a community can overwhelm even well-intentioned parents, attention is shifting toward creating environments that facilitate a parent's ability to do the right thing. The authors examine five community prevention efforts, summarizing for the theory of change and the empirical evidence concerning its efficacy. Each program aims to enhance community capacity by expanding formal and informal resources and establishing a normative cultural context capable of fostering collective responsibility for positive child development. The current evidence base for community child abuse prevention offers both encouragement and reason for caution. However, designing and implementing a high-quality, multifaceted community prevention initiative is expensive. The authors conclude that if the concept of community prevention is to move beyond the isolated examples examined in their article, additional conceptual and empirical work is needed to garner support.