Raising Awareness During Child Abuse Prevention Month
April is Child Abuse Prevention Month and even though we are all at home practicing social distancing, it did not stop Groundwork, PCSAO, the Ohio Children’s Hospital Association, Children’s Defense Fund-Ohio, Ohioans, and many other organizations from participating in Ohio Wears Blue Day on Wednesday to raise awareness around child abuse and neglect. As a result of high participation in Wednesday's Child Abuse Prevention Day activities, #OhioWearsBlue was the number one trending topic on Twitter in Ohio. We also had high attendance during our Wednesday webinar featuring top experts on child abuse from Dayton Children's Hospital, Prevent Child Abuse America, and ZERO TO THREE.
While it was important to raise awareness on social media to let families know that we are all to support them, we acknowledge that we must do more to protect children and families from child abuse during this difficult time. We've created a new resource to provide guidance and resources on how we can all work together to prevent child abuse and build child resiliency during the pandemic whether you are a parent, family member, provider, community member, or policymaker. In Ohio, we saw a 43% decrease in March for child abuse and neglect referrals, but this does not mean that it is not happening. The common reporters of child abuse (teachers, child care providers, home visitors, family members, etc.) are not regularly seeing these children, resulting in child abuse and neglect going undetected. While this may be true, child abuse IS preventable and we can all make a difference by taking the steps outlined in our resource.
Next week, the National Association for the Education of Young Children is hosting its annual Week of the Young Child (April 11-17). While most of us are not able to celebrate young children and early educators in the classroom and our communities right now, NAEYC and America for Early Ed created a Week of the Young Child social media toolkit for you to easily use and share with friends and colleagues as you celebrate this event. Click here to access the toolkit. Kindermusik and NAEYC are also offering free webinars throughout the week. Click here to register for the webinars. Additionally, the Ohio AEYC is hosting these webinar opportunities geared towards early educators.
Happiness is running through the streets to find you...even during a pandemic! with Holly Elissa Bruno on Tuesday, April 14th from 7:30-8:30 PM. Learn More and register here.
Courageous Conversations on Wednesday, April 15th from 7:30-8:30 PM and Thursday, April 16th from 1-2 PM. Learn more and register here.
Black Mamas Matter Alliance is a Black women-led cross-sectoral alliance. We center Black mamas to advocate, drive research, build power, and shift culture for Black maternal health, rights, and justice. Next week, join the Black Mamas Matter Alliance to amplify effective maternal health policies and solutions for Black mamas as part of the 3rd Annual Black Maternal Health Week from April 11-17. During the week, you can engage on social media and in many different webinar opportunities to raise awareness and learn more about black maternal health. #BMHW20 is an opportunity to think about improving maternal health disparities without fear, blame, or shame. Engage with BMMA and its partners by clicking here.
In case you missed it, we created a new Census toolkit (which includes kids' activities, sample emails, social media posts, and more) to encourage them to fill out the survey. It has never been easier for families to respond on their own, whether online, over the phone or by mail—all without having to meet a census taker. Even though you may not be seeing the families you work with regularly during this time, we hope you will use our toolkit to encourage families to respond to the 2020 Census. The Census is critical to making sure Ohio receives the funding we need to support children and families and we need your help in making sure Ohio has a complete count!
Child Care Programs: Share Your Story with Us
As you may already know, Groundwork Ohio is participating in conversations at both the state and national levels to provide leaders with insights and solutions to address the impact of coronavirus (COVID-19) on child care providers and we need your stories. If you are a child care provider in Ohio--whether you're from a family child care or center-based program and whether you've closed or are providing pandemic care--we hope you will fill out our brief survey to share how your program has been impacted by the recent pandemic.
Resources for Providers & Families
We know there is a lot of information and resources swirling around right now and it may feel overwhelming to some. This is why we created two pages to centralize these resources for providers and families to include background information on COVID-19, financial assistance, grant opportunities, and activities for young children. We will regularly update both these pages as we receive more information, so keep checking back for the latest resources.
We are currently working on developing resources for all early childhood related programs and hope to have this information posted within the coming weeks.
Do you have a resource that you would like us to list on our page? Please contact Julia Jackels at jjackels@groundworkohio.org to share your resource.
