Much of this conference is focused on assisting professionals to diagnose, assess and treat cases of child abuse and neglect. My presentation focuses on wider systemic issues in child protection and child abuse prevention. It is intended to provide a context for the work of health, medical and social welfare professionals, and to suggest ways forward for the development and enhancement of systems for the prevention and protection of child abuse and neglect. Please note, the terms child abuse and neglect and child maltreatment are used interchangeably throughout this paper. The term child abuse prevention encompasses the prevention of all forms of child abuse and neglect.
Primary prevention is targeted at the community as a whole.
Primary programs generally comprise mass media campaigns aimed at both children and adults, or school-based personal safety programs for children. Secondary prevention programs target specific 'at risk' sections of the population. That is, those with special needs or who are in need of greater support, such as young parents, single parents, people with physical or intellectual disabilities. I would add to Harrington and Dubowitz's list. In the western world, what resources are available for children's health and wellbeing and family support, have been mainly allocated to child protection services to investigate and treat the significantly increasing number of reported cases of suspected child abuse and neglect that have been identified in the past five to ten years.