April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month.
Mary Kate Gulick, Vice President of Marketing for Nebraska Children and Families Foundation, says research shows there are six protective factors that parents need to have that help lessen the risk of child abuse and neglect.
Gulick says national research shows that the strength of protective factors in a family is the most predictive element of whether or not abuse or neglect will happen in that family.
She says all families need protective factors to survive. Gulick says these include things like parental resilience and nurturing and attachment.
"Ways that a community could promote nurturing and attachment are really good prenatal education where you are talking to women about their babies right away so they start to feel a bond. Then there’s understanding of parenting and child development, concrete supports, so do families have food, safe shelter, employment, those things that are really important to mitigating the everyday stresses of life and keep some of those risk factors at bay.”
Gulick says this Saturday, Nebraska Children and Families Foundation along with the Nebraska Child Abuse Prevention Fund Board, will present their second annual Pinwheels for Prevention Picnic.
The event will be held from 11 to 2 in Lincoln’s Haymarket District.