For the Life of a Child

Every child deserves a safe, loving home.  They deserve happiness and support; they need these things to grow into healthy, well-adjusted community members.  We know that you need to get childhood right to get adulthood right.  Our work is based on the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, one of the largest investigations ever conducted to assess associations between the hardships children face and how it impacts them as adults, both behaviorally and physically.  The findings show that adverse childhood experiences are very common (66% of adults experience at least one) and that these experiences are linked to every major chronic illness and social problem that the United States grapples with - and spends billions of dollars on.

The cost to our country, not only in ethics and love, is monstrous - over $124 billion is spent each year on child abuse and neglect.  On average, the services needed for a child in the "system" cost $128,000 per year; The Child Abuse Prevention Center can help heal a child for $1,200 per year.  Support in this area means:

• We can publicly and loudly highlight the Center for Disease Control's findings that "child abuse is the number one public health crisis facing Americans."

 

• We can educate others on the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study and begin the healing process.

 

• We can advocate to keep funding where it works:  prevention.

 

• We can save more children.