Community-Level Prevention of Child Maltreatment

Evidence-based interventions to prevent child maltreatment by instructing and assisting parents in families deemed to be in situations that put them at higher risk (e.g. teen parents, single parents, families living in poverty), are being implemented throughout the U.S. This chapter describes a less studied area of inquiry: community-level approaches to child maltreatment prevention and the ways that they may augment existing individual and family-focused efforts. Informed by research on neighborhood structural factors and potentially modifiable social processes such as collective efficacy—both of which are associated with fluctuations in maltreatment rates in expected directions—community-level interventions focus on changing environments to improve population rates of maltreatment (Coulton et al., Child Abuse & Neglect, 31:1117–1142, 2007; Freisthler et al., Child Maltreatment, 11:263–280, 2006; Molnar et al., Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 17:387–397, 2016; Molnar et al., International Journal of Child Maltreatment, 3: 467-481). This chapter begins by describing the theoretical foundation of community-level prevention programs and reviewing empirical research on the utility of the community-level approach. Next, we outline how experts define community-level programs for child maltreatment prevention and describe the various types of existing programs. After detailing the strategies programs use to build relationships and work with culturally diverse communities, we identify existing barriers to implementation and discuss how these programs become sustainable. The chapter ends with recommendations for moving community-level child maltreatment prevention programs forward and increasing their efficacy and longevity in a context of ongoing inequalities and structural racism that also exist in and between communities.