The Woodrow Wilson School's Policy Research Institute for the Region will host a conference titled, "Preserving Programs that Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect During a Time of Economic Crisis" on November 13, 2009 from 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Woodrow Wilson School, in Robertson Hall.

In 2007, 720,000 children in the United States were identified by state child protective service agencies as having been abused or neglected, most often by one of their parents. Of these maltreated children, more than 1,500 died. Tens of thousands more suffered profound adverse effects on their health and development, up to and including permanent physical and mental impairments. The staggering toll that maltreatment took on children was matched by the costs it imposed on taxpayers. Nationwide, funding for child protective services—investigating and adjudicating maltreatment and providing services to families—totaled some $25 billion. The costs for the hospitalization, mental health care, and law enforcement that stem directly from maltreatment pushed the total to $33 billion.

Acknowledging the need to reduce both the human and fiscal costs of child maltreatment, social science researchers have begun focusing on strategies designed to prevent child abuse and neglect. This conference, which is based on the findings of the latest volume of The Future of Children, titled, Preventing Child Maltreatment, explores the rationale and means for implementing a prevention strategy, and looks at a range of specific prevention-oriented policies and programs: parenting programs, home-visiting programs, and ways for child protective service agencies to ramp up prevention efforts.

Richard Keevey, Director of the Policy Research Institute for the Region, will deliver the opening remarks. Christina Paxson, Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School, Professor of Economics and Public Affairs and Senior Editor of The Future of Children will provide an overview of the publication. Kimberly Ricketts, Commissioner of the New Jersey Department of Children and Families will deliver the keynote address.

The Future of Children is a collaboration between the Woodrow Wilson School and Brookings, and seeks to translate the best social science research into information that is useful to policymakers, practitioners, grant-makers, advocates, the media, and students of public policy

For more information and to register, please visit Policy Research Institute for the Region’s website.