Building Strong Children Together: Ending Child Maltreatment in Our Lifetime Through Disruption of Educational Systems and Approaches

• Published in: International journal on child maltreatment : research, policy and practice Vol. 3; no. 3; pp. 317 - 325
• Main Authors: Gardner, Tricia, Schmidt, Susan, Funderburk, Beverly, Taylor, Erin, Dunn, Jerry
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01.09.2020; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Academic Achievement; Behavior Change; Certification; Child Abuse; Child abuse & neglect; Child Advocacy; Child Neglect; Child welfare; Child Well-being; Children; Cognitive Restructuring; Collaboration; Educational Change; Educational Opportunities; Educational systems; Evidence Based Practice; Graduate Medical Education; Inspection; Interdisciplinary Approach; Interdisciplinary aspects; Labor Force; Leadership; Leadership Styles; Medical Education; Mental health; Original Paper; Parent Child Relationship; Parent Rights; Parental rights; Pediatrics; Prevention; Professional training; Professionals; Public health; Public policy; Social Sciences; Trauma; United States > US; Child abuse prevention; Child maltreatment; Multidisciplinary
• ISSN: 2524-5236; 2524-5244
• DOI: 10.1007/s42448-020-00055-5

Our current educational system places the onus on individual professions to create large-scale change within the field of child maltreatment. Historically, each profession has expended significant time and resources to personally create and traverse their own pathway in addressing the prevention and treatment of child abuse and neglect. The siloed structure of our current educational system inherently limits our collective vision and impact toward a safer future for children. Our greatest collective failing has been the failure to effectively shift the focus across professional disciplines from post-maltreatment intervention to that of primary prevention. Our vision for breaking down educational silos begins at the undergraduate level, continues throughout the graduate and post-graduate progression, and culminates in professional leadership training and mentorship. We are convinced that this multi-tiered educational approach will create the necessary foundation to support a collaborative approach to the design, dissemination, and implementation of a new era of within- and cross-systems best practices in child abuse prevention. Our paper will focus on the creation of the EndCAN Academy to serve as the unifying leader in this vision.