Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Prevention of Child Maltreatment, Essay Example

The slides on child maltreatment prevention have provided a comprehensive set of data on the existing approaches that target the individuals, communities, and families in terms of assisting people to find out more information about what child maltreatment is, and how it can be targeted. However, slide 2 is of particular significance, since it outlines the levels of prevention that can be adopted in the community, but does not elaborate on them in more depth. According to slide 2, prevention can be primary, secondary, and tertiary. In connection with this, one has to understand what these levels mean. For instance, I would also include the following data in this slide:

Primary prevention is targeted at the community at large, and the primary prevention activities are directed at influencing families before any cases of neglect and abuse occur. The primary prevention services include public education activities, parent education classes, family support programs, etc. However, primary prevention is a challenging notion because it is hard to measure the threat of child maltreatment before it occurs (FRIENDS, 2013). Secondary prevention refers to the activities aimed at families with risk factors such as registered substance abuse, young age of parents, children with special needs, single parents, low income families, etc. Such activities involve parent education classes, respite care for parents of children with disabilities, and home visiting programs for new parents (FRIENDS, 2013). Finally, tertiary prevention is targeted at parents in whose families abuse has already taken place; these activities are directed at child welfare program provision, and refer to the jurisdiction of CPS and interventions with or without legal supervision (Friends, 2013).

References

Friends (2013). Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention. National Resource Center for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention. Retrieved from http://friendsnrc.org/prevention