Creating Child Friendly Communities: NAPCAN’s Approach to Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect in AustraliaScott T1*, Foster A1 and Taylor L11. NAPCAN (National Association for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect) Haymarket, Queensland, AustraliaSince 1987, NAPCAN has been Australia’s only national charity working solely for the primary prevention of child abuse and neglect – that is, stopping abuse before it happens. NAPCAN has offices in each State and Territory and since 1990, has been responsible for facilitating a national public awareness campaign during National Child Protection Week celebrations. NAPCAN is working to achieve its vision of a child-safe, child-friendly society through 3 specific approaches to community engagement. These are: awareness, advocacy and education. Our ‘awareness’ approach involves engaging government, community and corporate groups in NCPW activities thus encouraging them to recognise their role in keeping children safe. It also involves encouraging innovative and creative ‘communities’ to showcase their stories as part of our Inspired and Courageous Communities program. Our ‘advocacy’ approach two-fold: engaging the media in responsible, factual and positive discussion of child abuse prevention; and promoting the rights of children by calling for a child-friendly focus to all policy development across Australia based on the UN Convention for the Rights of a Child (UNCROC). Our ‘education’ approach involves engaging with both professionals and communities in forums to share information, knowledge and skills about prevention of child abuse and neglect. On last year’s figures, an Australian child is reported abused or neglect every 2½ minutes. Each year the figures are getting worse, despite millions of dollars being poured into child protection systems across Australia. NAPCAN’s presentation will highlight the need for a national approach to universal primary prevention as the only way to reduce or at least holt the ever-growing numbers of child abuse cases. |
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