| Faith Communities and Primary Prevention |  It may seem overwhelming to have a discussion within a faith community about child neglect and abuse, especially with all the recent attention on abuse within religious organizations. It helps to remember that primary prevention begins before abuse ever happens, and it can be as simple as providing emotional support to families in your faith community. Parents and caregivers need support from all directions, and their faith community is an ideal source for reassurance, education, stress relief, child care, spiritual guidance, and just plain fun. Of the Five Protective Factors that help to prevent the occurrence of child neglect and abuse, three of them can be directly addressed by spiritual communities:
Parental resilience. Recognizing the signs of stress and enhancing problem-solving skills can help parents continue to have courage during and after a crisis.
Social connections. Parents with family, friends, and neighbors to depend on have better support in times of need.
Concrete supports for parents. Caregivers with access to financial, housing, and other concrete resources and services that help them meet their basic needs can better attend to their role as parents.
This link will take you to a pdf of some printable two-sided bookmarks (four to a page) that highlight the protective factors and other prevention ideas. Forming a Circle of ParentsŪ group is another way to provide support to parents and caregivers, especially if your group can be held within your church, synagogue, or other building.
The next article highlights an upcoming workshop about congregations and prevention. This might also be something of interest to faith communities who want to reach out to families in their congregations and outside communities. |
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June 24th Workshop on Preparing Congregations to Protect Children
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What can congregations do to prevent child abuse and neglect in their communities?
How can community professionals partner with congregations to strengthen families and protect children?
Learn more at this workshop presented by author, Jeanette Harder*, and a panel of professionals (including Connie Skillingstad from PCAMN)
Friday, June 24, 2011, 9:00-11:00am
Children's Hospital - Minneapolis
Conference Center, 2nd floor
2525 Chicago Avenue South
Minneapolis, Minnesota
*Jeanette Harder, CMSW, PhD, is on faculty at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Grace Abbott School of Social Work.
RSVP by June 20 at www.dovesnest.net/minneapolis.
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| Emotional Intelligence for Leaders |
You might have caught an introductory workshop to Emotional Intelligence at the PCAMN conference this past March; here's a chance to dig in deeper to the concepts of Emotional Intelligence, increasing your self awareness, self management, awareness of others, and relationship skills. EI for Leaders is an intensive six month training and coaching course offered by insideoutcomes. See the full course description as well as a link to application and schedules here:
www.insideoutcomes.biz/services/intensive-training
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| Work with Kids and Art! | | Be a mentor and work with a team of volunteers to lead abused, neglected, and at-risk children in art projects for two hours a week. The Weekly Mentorship Program at Free Arts Minnesota offers children an opportunity to develop healthy relationships with adults, increase their sense of self-worth and help them learn new ways to communicate through participation in the arts. There are volunteer opportunities throughout the Twin Cities at varying times, including evenings and weekends. Training provided. No artistic background required, though creativity is welcome! Learn more at www.freeartsminnesota.org.
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| Superhero Run/Walk |
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Be a Superhero and join us for a fun run/walk at Lake Phalen.
Learn more here.
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| Another Fun Event |
Soak Up Summer Safety with the Minnesota Lynx! NCPTC's Jacob Wetterling Resource Center Fundraiser.
Sunday June 5, 2011 at 2:30PM
Safety workshops begin at 1:30PM
LYNX vs. SPARKS
Ticket Prices: $30 lower level seats discounted to $20
A portion of the proceeds of tickets sold by NCPTC-JWRC will go towards continuing efforts to improve education on child abuse. This will be a great family event with lots of fun things for the kids. All the youth can join the players in the high-five tunnel before the game. A select group of youth will be invited onto the court following the game for basketball shooting contests with lots of great prizes! Click here to order tickets and enter the special offer code, NCPTC. Tickets can also be purchased by contacting:
Jasmine Carr at carr@timberwolves.com
612.673.8412
Ask Jasmine about the Meal Deal!
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| Web Conference |
From Data to Prevention: Framing Sexual and Domestic Violence Prevention Impact from a Cost-Effectiveness Perspective. A web conference from Prevent Connect.
In these tough economic times, have you ever wondered how to make the case that your sexual assault and domestic violence prevention program is cost-effective? Would you like to learn how to better state your program's impact to funders and other decision-makers? In this webinar, we will share a simple, 6-step process for framing how to evaluate prevention work and how invested resources are producing meaningful outcomes for ending violence against women. Participants will increase their understanding of why cost-effectiveness thinking is relevant to their organizations and receive concrete tools to apply these concepts in practical ways (e.g. program planning, evaluation and fundraising efforts). Through this web conference, we will also work toward building a unified analysis and talking points that can help all our prevention programs become more sustainable.
Web Conference on Wednesday, June 8, 2011
This ninety-minute (90 min) session will start at 1 PM Central Standard Time.
Register with Prevent Connect here.
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| PCAMN Links |
PreventionWorks: Fall/Winter 2010 Newsletter from PCAMN on Understanding Neglect
ParentPower: March 2011 Newsletter from the Parent Leadership Team on Social Connections
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| Circle of ParentsŪ | |
We offer free community-based support groups for parents and children. Click here for more information. |
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