April is Child Abuse Prevention Month 

April is Child Abuse Prevention Month 
It’s Child Abuse Prevention Month!
Here are some things that you can do to learn more about child abuse prevention and support agencies that are working to end child abuse: 

• Get specialized license plates that benefit the Children’s Trust Fund. Proceeds go to various prevention efforts in the state. 

• Sponsor a pinwheel for prevention on the state capital. Click here to learn more about “Pinwheels for Prevention,” a state and nationwide public awareness campaign that prioritizes prevention right from the start. 

Here are some things that people at the Brown School are doing to raise awareness and prevent child abuse and neglect:

• Faculty members (Patricia Kohl and Melissa Jonson-Reid) are speaking at the National Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect in Washington D.C., held April 16-20. 

o The Institute of Medicine and National Resource Council will unveil their first report at the conference since 1993 detailing the status of research in child maltreatment, which will be available in book form soon. (Melissa Jonson-Reid was an invited contributor who spoke at their workshop and work of her and other faculty at the Brown School are highlighted).

• Faculty affiliated with the CVIP are involved in several projects related to preventing child abuse and/or preventing revictimization (These can be viewed on the CVIP website). 

• The Brown School now has 3 PhD students who are Doris Duke Fellowship recipients (which focuses on child abuse prevention): Paul Lanier, Kristen Seay and Byron Powell. 

• There are at least two posters/presentations being done by PhD students at the 20th Annual Colloquium of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children (APSAC). 

• Brett Drake, Professor and Co-Director of the CVIP Education Team, is assisting St. Louis Area Council on Child Abuse and Neglect (CoCAN) as a board member and also providing a segment of their professional training program in June. 

• A Transdisciplinary Problem Solving-Child Maltreatment course is being offered for the second time, bringing MPH, MSW and other students together to help prepare them to address the research, intervention, and policy issues that will move this area of work forward.