Career Paths in Prevention of Child Abuse

Hello Brenda.  I don't know how much help I can be, but, I too wanted to prevent "child abuse", more specifically in my case "early childhood trauma," so I created my own job.  I formed Smile At Your Baby!  Now, though I AM doing work that I love and find incredibly satisfying, I am doing it all as a volunteer.  Certainly, the hope is that one day Smile At Your Baby! will be able to pay it's Executive Director a salary.  I formed SAYB in Feb. of 2011 and don't anticipate being able to take a salary for another year or two.  If you'd care to discuss the possibility of doing some volunteer work for SAYB, I'm happy to have a conversation with you.  Best of luck to you!  :D  Shelley

Shelley, thank you for being brave enough to share your experience!  I'm doing a LOT of volunteer activities right now that relate to child abuse/early childhood trauma -- sitting on boards, advisory boards, attending conferences, symposiums, etc.  But I really want to have the credentials necessary to open doors, sit with the leadership in youth serving organizations, talk with community leaders, governmental organizations and the like to change minds, open minds, explain how much change needs to happen in order to make our society more functional, helpful for everyone (safety is a big piece of the equation).  Right now, I'm a survivor with a passion, a mom who wants real safety for her children and all children, and want to make changes that work for everyone - survivors, communities, society, organizations, etc.). Thanks so much for the input!

Hi, Brenda:

Perhaps the first step would be to figure out what interests you in prevention. Education? Advocacy? Social work? From your comment below, it seems as if advocacy and education rise to the top. 

You might want to start with some of these resources that I found in Maryland. You could talk with those organizations that do advocacy and find out what kind of skills and training they're looking for. 

I hope this helps.

Cheers, Jane

Jane, Thank you for the resources.  I have begun questioning, searching through job opportunities nationwide in the fields of interest to me.  There's no guarantee I'll find a job right here, especially when Maryland and Montgomery County are so very far behind the rest of the country in prevention, child abuse issues, and shifting the burden off of children and onto adults.  I appreciate you and all the help & direction you provide.  Thank you.

Hi Brenda

I don't know what your existing qualifications or training are like. In my case, like others who have replied, I created my own charity (not for profit), dedicated to ending child abuse worldwide, while doing a job which did earn me money. I also studied in my spare time to become a Clinical Criminologist - as a result of which I began working in prisons, healing violent offenders (in my spare time). Almost all had been abused or neglected, or both, in childhood.

Fast forward 17 years and I now run the charity full-time, and we are having a real impact in the UK. At end February I go to Eugene, Oregon to speak at the Annual Conference of the 90by30 campaign there. 90by30 is a campaign to reduce child maltreatment by 90% by the year 2030 in Eugene's county. We made the connection because my charity, WAVE Trust (WAVE stands for Worldwide Alternatives to Violence) has a campaign to reduce child maltreatment across the UK by 70% by 2030.

It may seem a long pathway - it took me 9 years to reach the point where WAVE was paying me a salary - but (1) you sound young, and have time. I was 52 years old when I formed WAVE; (2) with the help of our community you'll get there much faster !!

www.wavetrust.org

best wishes from London

George

Have you thought about becoming involved with one or more of the evidence based home visiting programs in your community? They have data that supports their work at preventing CA/N and many of the parents in the programs are survivors who clearly want their child to have a better life. There are many ways to be involved: program support, data entry/clerk, outreach worker, community advisory board member, as well as being a home visitor. The programs have a range of profession/background criteria for home visitors. Google it.

There might also be leads in the sidebar on the second page. Apparently, Head Start does some home visiting: http://www.acy.org/upimages/Home_Visiting.pdf

Thank you George & Quen!  I appreciate all the wonderful input!  George, I'm young at heart and mind, but not so young in terms of age, but thank you :)

Quen, I Googled your idea and, of course here in Montgomery County, Maryland there are NO SUCH PROGRAMS!  This is a county where NOTHING BAD EVER HAPPENS!  And if it does?  We just sweep that stuff right under the carpet.  Make victims miserable enough to move out of the county.  We have to be pristine because people with good educations and lots of money move here -- and we have to keep up our image...but thank you for the idea!  I HATE the mentality of this county!  It's so 1960's!!!!

Brenda

Hi, Brenda: I also looked, and came up with this organization:

Jane, Thank you for the resources.  I DO appreciate your efforts!  I know some of this is taking place in parts of my county - those more urban.  Nothing around me yet.  But it's good to see it's out there somewhere.