Reframing the Issue: A New Child Maltreatment Prevention Message

Abstract

orking with the media to mobilize the public in efforts to prevent child maltreatment has long been regarded as a vital component of a comprehensive child maltreatment prevention system. 1 Public awareness activities play an important role in that they have the potential to reach diverse audiences— parents, professionals, community members—who are critical in protecting children and supporting families. Since the 1970s, child maltreatment prevention professionals have been implementing prevention campaigns across the country. Overall, they have been tremendously successful at making an issue out of child maltreatment and bringing it to the forefront of the public’s concerns. However, child maltreatment prevention public awareness efforts have become frayed and repetitive. Campaigns swing wildly from showing or implying graphic maltreatment to heartfelt messages trying to increase the “value” of children in parents’ eyes. History of Child Maltreatment Public Awareness There is little research or collected history of child maltreatment prevention public awareness campaigns. However, we know that as early as the 1870s, child maltreatment showed signs of growing in the public’s consciousness. The “rediscovery” of child maltreatment occurred in the 1950s-1970s, an era when equity and social responsibility dominated public discourse. 2 Until this time, and still existing across many areas of our culture today, children were inherently viewed as property of the family. The 1962 article, “The Battered-Child Syndrome,” by C. Henry Kempe served as a springboard for child maltreatment to reassert itself as a powerful social issue. 3 Between 1963 and 1967, every state passed some form of child maltreatment reporting laws. However, little was done to educate the public about these laws. Public awareness campaigns about child maltreatment began being launched to improve professional and public awareness of child maltreatment and the reporting laws. At the same time, technology in the form of Wide Area Telephone Service (WATS) lines and toll-free numbers