Program areas at Child Abuse Prevention Association
Counseling: CAPA's Counseling Program provides trauma-focused individual and group therapy and case management services for child victims of abuse and their non-offending family members. The Counseling Program is designed to help children, youth, and their families overcome the negative effects of traumatic life events such as child sexual abuse, physical abuse, or exposure to family or community violence. Counseling increases the protective factors of stress-management skills, affects regulation, problem-solving, safety skills, communication skills, self-esteem, and interpersonal trust. In 2023, this program served a total of 340 individuals who received over 14,000 hours of counseling and crisis support. The program's expenses were $2,105,586.32 of which $646,335 was in-kind specialized services provided by clinical interns.
Prevention Education: CAPA's prevention education programming is designed to empower communities to create healthy and safe homes for children. The goal of this service is to prevent child abuse by giving parents, caregivers, educators and children the tools and knowledge needed to keep kids healthy and safe. As part of its prevention strategy, CAPA provides educational programming to the community, which includes parenting classes, mandated reporter trainings to area childcare workers and school district employees, and safety skills trainings to elementary-aged children designed to give children the tools needed to protect themselves from abuse. In 2023, this program served at least 1,269 individuals with education and outreach. The program's expenses are included in the Counseling budget since staff and resources are shared.
Family Support Services: CAPA's prevention efforts include on-going family support services designed to keep kids safe from abuse by strengthening families through in-home case management as well as an intensive parenting support group. These services prevent child abuse by increasing family resiliency, knowledge of parenting and child development, and to increase the presence of social supports within the family. They also help to increase bonding and attachment between parents and children. CAPA bases its home-visiting program on the Healthy Families America model and the parenting support group on the Strengthening Families curriculum created by the University of Iowa. These tools give CAPA a powerful and verifiable strategy for helping to keep kids safe from child abuse. In 2023, this program served 39 families that received 370 individualized support and case management visits. The program's expenses were $344,919.12.