KidSafe Sponsored Projects



To read more, click on a triangle to expand the text.

Expand/Collapse Item Recent Initiatives

 

Expand/Collapse Item Accomplishments

Expand/Collapse Item Prevention and Early Intervention

  • 55 children and 49 adults in 31 families received intensive home visiting by nurses through the Visiting Nurse Association's Maternal-Child Health Division.
  • 999 children and 572 adults enjoyed center-based playgroups, parenting support and education, after-school activities, story times and early literacy activities, and multicultural events through the Family Room at the St. Joseph's School (operated by the VNA), the Winooski Family Center, and the Milton Family Community Center.

Expand/Collapse Item Intervention and Treatment

940 children and 1,051 adults were served by the following community organizations:
  • Women Helping Battered Women Children's After School Playgroup, which serves school-aged children who have witnessed family violence.
  • Lund Family Center's Nurturing Parents Program for incarcerated fathers and parents working with SRS.
  • COTS Family Services which offers support services for homeless children and families.
  • Spectrum Youth and Family Services Domestic Abuse Education Program which provides parenting education for batterers.
    • *DadSafe, an eight-week parenting education program for men.
    • *Young Men's RAPP (Relationship Abuse Prevention Project), which addresses relationship violence with male adolescents.
  • The Family Connection Center, which provides children with a safe, neutral place for supervised visitation with non-custodial parents and family members.
  • YMCA Camp Greylock, supports children attending camp, including those referred by Social Rehabilitation Services (SRS).
  • The Baird Center for Children & Families and SRS
    • *STEP groups serve children ages 6-12 who are displaying inappropriate sexual behavior toward other children, and their families.
    • *Community Adolescent Sex Offender Program provides individual and group treatment for youth and their families.

Expand/Collapse Item Professional Training

  • KidSafe works with its partner agencies to coordinate and strengthen trainings for professionals mandated by law as well as others to report child abuse. These trainings teach professionals to recognize the signs of abuse and provide instruction on filing a report.
  • KidSafe also supports prevention education directly for parents and children to prevent abuse from occurring, as well as broad community awareness of child abuse and neglect.

Expand/Collapse Item Child Protection Team

Empaneled by DCF, the Chittenden Child Protection Team (CPT), reviews cases of child physical or sexual abuse and neglect in Chittenden County. An interagency team develops plans for community-based services to support children and families and protect victims from further harm.

The CPT has been operating under revised guidelines since April 2001. 

  • New mission statement as follows: Chittenden Child Protection and Family Support Teams are multidisciplinary teams with the purpose of strengthening and coordinating our community's response to concerns regarding child abuse and neglect, and promoting safety of children and families, in an atmosphere of support and mutual respect.

Expand/Collapse Item Vermont Child Fatality Review Committee

KidSafe volunteer and pediatrician George Brown, MD, convened this statewide, multidisciplinary, volunteer team which is charged with examining, analyzing and reporting the causes of all child deaths in Vermont each year.

The VT Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services funds the Vermont Child Fatility Review Committee (CFRC), and KidSafe administers CFRC grant funds.

Accomplishments

  • In 1999, the CFRC reviewed the 75 child deaths that occurred in Vermont in 1997 and made recommendations related to the prevention of such deaths.
  • In 2000, the CFRC reviewed the 77 child deaths that occurred in 1998 and made recommendations related to the prevention of such deaths of the CFRC annual report were published and distributed.
  • 17 CFRC members contributed 200 hours each year to this work.

Expand/Collapse Item KidSafe Training Toolkit

Through the Community Network's KidSafe Collaborative , we have identified the training of mandatory reporters as a strategy for reducing the cost and effects of child abuse and neglect in Vermont .

Last year in Vermont, the number of child maltreatment reports to the Vermont Department for Children and Families

The KidSafe Training Toolkit will help to meet the first objective under Injury in the VT Department of Health's Healthy Vermonters 2010: Vermont's Blueprint for Improving Public Health. The problem of child abuse and neglect has many costs for which dollar estimates vary. However, the damage to a child as a result of neglect or physical and/or sexual abuse is well documented. "Children who were abused are more likely to develop mental health problems, aggressive behavior, and learning disorders..[and] are more likely to have problems with low academic achievement, drug use, teen pregnancy and delinquency."* The Vermont Injury Prevention Plan 2001 has identified early intervention and support as one of the key strategies for the prevention of intentional violence such as child abuse.*

The toolkit will include a training video and manual based on the Vermont statutes for mandated reporters of child maltreatment, along with a model protocol to guide the process of reporting. Our hope is to craft useful and consistent message about reporting child abuse and neglect, help to dispel some commonly held myths, and better ensure the safety of Vermont's children.

The video will be an introduction to knowing who needs to report, recognizing signs of child abuse, knowing when and how to report, and what happens after a report is made. It will feature representatives from SRS and law enforcement, and interviews with professional who have made reports. It will also present some considerations for cultural competency when reporting child abuse and neglect. The training manual will provide an outline for discussing and addressing some of the frequently asked questions about reporting.

We plan to distribute the toolkit widely to visiting nurse associations, pediatric offices, community health centers, child care centers, schools, early childhood councils, parent child centers, police departments, and other state and community-based agencies at low or no cot in order to train the maximum number of mandated reporters around the state.

*This fact was found in one of the following sources:

Child abuse and Neglect in Vermont Report 2001, Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services, William M Young, Commissioner, May 2002.

Carney, Jan K., MD, MPH, Commissioner. Healthy Vermonters 2010: Vermont's Blueprint for Improving public Health. State of Vermont Department of Health, September 2000.

Carney, Jan K., MD, MPH, Commissioner. Vermont Injury Prevention Plan 2001, pps 10-13, State of Vermont Department of Health, 2001.