Prevent Child Abuse Athens

Healthy families provides in-home visits by family support workers to overburdened parents of newborns. Staff offer parenting education, support, and information on community resources for up to 4 years after the birth of a Child. Families receiving intensive home visiting are more likely to be linked to a medical provider (currently 98%) and have children fully immunized; they are much less likely to have a repeat teen pregnancy (currently just 1 out of 37 participating teens) or substantiated Abuse or neglect. Over 130 families at risk for abuse/neglect received thousands of home visits in our latest reporting year. One young mom told us that her family support worker is a blessing in her life, listens to her and builds her confidence, helps her find solutions for her problems, and inspires her to be a better parent and person.

Parenting classes are held in various community locations throughout the year. In our latest reporting year more than 300 parents participated in classes where they learned all about Child development, family communication, and non-physical discipline techniques.

First steps staff and volunteers provide new parents with support, parenting information, and referrals to community resources in the first year of parenting. More than 1,000 families were served in the latest reporting year.

Community education provides presentations by staff and volunteers to community groups on Child Abuse prevention and recognizing/reporting Abuse. In the past year pcaa reached more than 3,500 people through community education.