Every day four children will have their childhood end abruptly due to child abuse. (Child Abuse Statistics). The most vulnerable human beings lose the opportunity to experience life with innocent hope. Those who survive will suffer psychological and physical wounds for a lifetime. Thirty percent of these survivors will later become abusers to their own children (Child Abuse Statistics). When will this destructive cycle end? Can it end? The general public will have to become more aware of the long term implications of abuse before they take responsibility to prevent abuse. We sit on our couches and watch the news and hear story after story of children who have lost their lives due to child abuse, we hear court cases that make us want to cry; we see crime scenes and hear about sexual predators but what do we do about it? Well most of us look at agencies like Child Protective Services and question their effectiveness and blame them for not doing "their job". We blame foster care programs for not putting kids into good homes. This mentality needs to change. There are a lot of issues with Child Protective Services but addressing and fixing those issues will not put an end to child abuse and it is unrealistic to say that there is a solution that will prevent abuse from ever happening again. Even the most radical solutions such as requiring everyone to "pass a child-rearing test before being issued a procreation permit" will not work because our nation values freedom and choice and this act would strip liberty from our lives. So what can we all do?  We need to create a child friendly environment and community that helps prevent abuse from happening. This would require a movement of the people to prioritize the health and safety of all children. Education and support should be provided at every stage of a child's life to break the cycle of abuse. Increasing our compassion for humanity and breaking down our barriers of judgment will create a community that will reduce incidence of abuse. 

Child Protective Services is a government agency at the state level that was created to respond to reports of abuse and neglect, whose "goal is to keep children in their homes when it is deemed safe, and to provide them with a safe environment whey they are determined to be at risk," (Waldfogel). This is what they are "supposed" to do but what are they really doing? An anonymous past employee of Child Protective Services explains the reality of Child Protective Services, "I am a social worker and I was in child protective services. It is not like what you see on Law and Order. We do not cackle while we grab wailing kids from the arms of screaming parents. We do not ineptly disappear for months on end while our kids rot in some faraway foster home that nobody seems to be able to locate. We do not get rich "snatching babies" and we do not get commission for each kid we take. What we do is navigate an understaffed, underfunded, and completely misunderstood system in order to do the best we can by the most vulnerable kids (and parents) that we have" ("It Happened to Me: I worked in Child Protective Services"). Overinclusion, under inclusion, capacity, service orientation, and service delivery are the five major concerns people have about Child Protective Services. The extent of all of these concerns cannot be fully place on CPS. 

Overinclusion happens because families are unjustly and inappropriately reported (Waldfogel). A lot of the time Child Protective Services are blamed for "wasting" their time on families that have no reason to be investigated. This is not an issue of CPS, rather it is our society's problem. In fact, "the number of referrals to child protective service agencies has increased by 8.3 percent, even as overall rates of actual child victimization declined by 3.3 percent during the same period" (Friedersdorf). Custody disputes, fights with neighbors, torn relationships with extended family are sometimes the cause of these inappropriate reports. People need to face their problems head on instead of trying to be passive aggressive and getting someone else involved, like CPS. Another reason for overinclusion is that Child Protective Services have concerns about children from poor and minority families (Waldfogel). It is a big assumption to claim that it a family is struggling financially they will likely have cases of abuse. Instead of assuming the worst, CPS should provide assistance to these families in need. What these families really need is extra support. Examples of this could be the Food Stamp Program, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and support from extended family or friends such as baby sitting, providing them a temporary place to live and helping them find jobs.  The final reason for overinclusion is that fact that families think they have a better chance of receiving child care or therapy if they are identified as a CPS case. Again, society could step up and try to help each other out instead of indirectly encouraging low-risk families to rely on the CPS to help them with their basic needs. Friends could refer these families in need to therapists they know or take care of their children when they are working. Inappropriate reports are causing the CPS to focus their attentions on lower-risk cases rather than families who are in real need of assistance. 

Under-inclusion and capacity are issues that go hand in hand. "The number of families involved with Child Protective Services far exceeds the capacity of the system to serve them responsibly," which causes a lot of families who are in need to be overlooked (Waldfogel). The CPS is required to respond to the rapidly increasing amount of reports, however there are not enough resources to keep this agency afloat. Also in some cases there is not enough evidence to make a legal case against a family, as the anonymous ex-CPS worker explains, " ... maybe the family did have a history with CPS, but there was nothing tangible enough for you to base a legal case on but you knew there was something and you wanted to scream but I know this is something, I just know it, but I can't prove it, but since you couldn't prove it you couldn't do anything and now a kid is dead" ("It Happened to Me: I Worked in Child Protective Services"). A lot of policies prevent the CPS from being able to take action. On the other hand there is no policy that limits a family member or a close friend to step into these toxic environments and do something. Why are we not supporting each other in these hard times? Support does not mean barging into other people's problems without respect, but instead it means asking someone if they need help and offering assistance if they do. The smallest thing, such as a neighbor asking a stressed parent if driving their child to school in the morning would help them could make a big impact. 

The final two concerns with CPS have to do with providing services, specifically not providing enough services. There can be shortages of services for minority children, local services, housing services, etc (Waldfogel). This makes caseworkers struggle to give the care that these families need. My major concern however, is that Child Protective Services is only alerted to a problem after the damage as already been done, which means psychological damages will already be ingrained into the child. However, the environments and support systems that families and children have can prevent abuse from happening in the first place. One solution to this problem could be prevention programs at schools. If all schools had programs that taught children self-defense, self-esteem, and ways to get help, this could first of all help prevent abuse and second provide a safe environment for children. This also could help with the lack of services that CPS can provide.

There are lots of afterschool programs, like the YMCA, that help parents by providing a fun and safe place for their kids to be while they are still working. Why not have a program that provides that need while teaching kids how to protect themselves. Currently there is not prevention program focused on neglect because it is nearly impossible for children to be able to protect themselves from neglect (School Based Child Abuse Prevention Programs). However, this program could teach children signs of neglect so that they are aware of their own situation, or they may be able to identify other children who are in that situation and need help. These programs could be held right after school in a classroom, a gym, auditorium, or any available space the school has. The only thing that this program really demands is people who will give up some of their time to help children. With the correct training teachers, parents, almost anyone would be able to volunteer. The school's therapist may be able to train the volunteers, or maybe the school could adopt a prevention program like Safe Child Program, which "aims to prevent sexual abuse by people known to the child, abuse and abduction by strangers, physical and emotional abuse and to teach safety for children while in self-care" (School Based Child Abuse Prevention Programs). A program like this would be relevant to every child because abuse can happen anywhere. Children who have stable, close families are still not free from potential abuse. They still need to learn how to protect themselves and be able to recognize when they are in a bad situation. A program like this would also benefit a child who is undergoing abuse because it provides a community for them and they may eventually feel comfortable enough to tell an adult what they are going through. With proper training and effective content, after school programs could become very successful in preventing abuse.

In a study that observed multiple prevention programs, Brassard and Fiorvanti determined important aspects that make a program effective (School Based Child Abuse Prevention Programs). The first aspect was curriculum components. The most successful programs had active practice of material and active participation, such as acting out scenarios, role playing, videos, discussions, etc. This allows the children to become involved with what they are learning and teaches them how to react and protect themselves when they are in an abusive situation. The next component that was very important was the duration of the program. The study showed that kids retained the most information when the program met regularly for short periods of time. So in this case, meeting every day after school would be an effective duration time. The final component is family involvement, which is idealistic but may be hard to achieve for some families. Maybe every month they could plan an event for families to come and see what their kids are learning to get them involved. If all these components were included in these after school programs, strong kids that have greater self-esteem and know how to demonstrate better protection behaviors would be the result.

All types of abuse have lifelong consequences for the families and the children effected. These include disabilities or mental retardation in children, social isolation of families, parent's lack of understanding of children's needs, poverty and other socioeconomic disadvantage, lack of family cohesion, substance abuse in family, parental stress and distress and community violence (Promising Practices for Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect). Children who are abused mostly likely will not receive basic necessities that all children need from their family, such as support, nurture, stable relationships, adequate housing, and access to health care (Promising Practices for Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect). However, there is hope that these vulnerable children can be provided a community that supports them and takes responsibility to prevent abuse from happening.  Child Protective Services cannot improve a family's financial situation nor help them become closer with their neighbors. This is where the rest of society needs to step up. Schools, churches, friends, but most importantly every member of society can help these children by giving them a supportive and child friendly community to fall back on. Although there are many components Child Protective Services can improve on, the responsibility of preventing abuse is not solely on them. It is on all of us.  

