LeCroy & Milligan Associates has a long history of supporting child abuse prevention efforts through our research and evaluation projects. For over 25 years, we’ve had the honor of helping to build the evidence of promising approaches for decreasing child abuse and neglect in our communities through our studies of many home visitation models, including Healthy Families America and Parents as Teachers. You can view some of our reports on our Publications Page.
This month and throughout the year, LeCroy & Milligan Associates encourages all individuals and organizations to play a role in making Arizona a better place for children and families. By ensuring that parents have the knowledge, skills, and resources they need to care for their children, we can help prevent child abuse and neglect by creating strong and thriving children, youth, and families in our communities. Research shows that protective factors are present in healthy families.
Protective factors are conditions or attributes of individuals, families, communities, or the larger society that mitigate risk and promote healthy development and wellbeing. Promoting the following protective factors is one of the most effective ways to reduce the risk of child abuse and neglect:
• Nurturing and attachment
• Knowledge of parenting and of child and youth development
• Parental resilience
• Social connections
• Concrete supports for parents
• Social and emotional competence of children
Focusing on ways to connect with families is the best thing our community can do to strengthen families and prevent child abuse and neglect. In support of these efforts, the Children's Bureau, within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in collaboration with its information service, Child Welfare Information Gateway, the Office on Child Abuse and Neglect, the FRIENDS National Center for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention, and over 30 national prevention partners, has created the 2019/2020 Prevention Resource Guide: Strong and Thriving Families. The Resource Guide, designed for service providers who work throughout the community to support families, is available online at