What Does the Decade of the Child Mean to Prevention Professionals?

“Children Are Any Country’s Greatest Resource"

Beginning With Where You Stand

In your community, where does prevention most often break down?

• Is it in the consistent use of evidence in decision-making?
• Implementation with fidelity?
• Alignment across systems?
• Data capacity to guide improvement?

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You just identified where you see the greatest gap in your community.

Whether it is inconsistent use of evidence, challenges with fidelity, fragmentation across systems, misaligned funding, or uncertainty about where the system stands, that gap reflects a deeper question:

Are our systems aligned with what science tells us children need?

The Decade of the Child invites prevention professionals to examine that alignment more closely.

Prevention professionals are more and more aware of the discrepancy between what we know from the science about how to improve the health of our children and how that knowledge is integrated into services being delivered within our communities.  The National Prevention Science Coalition is promoting an agenda called the Decade of the Child (https://www.npscoalition.org/projects/decade-of-the-child).

What does this mean?

The data indicate that although we are committed to supporting the health of our children, nearly two-thirds experience physical, mental, and/or social health problems that have an impact on their having healthy and productive futures. Where does your State stand relative to the others in the prevalence of children experiencing one of more physical, mental, developmental or social health conditions? 

 

State Specific Prevalence of US Children Age 0-17 Years Who Experience One or More Complex Physical, Mental, Development or Social Health Conditions and/or Risks. Data source: 2022-2023 National Survey of Children’s Health

The good news is that we know what our children need to thrive. Decades of scientific research have informed sound recommendations for advancing evidence-based policies and practices that promote health and prevent many of the problems children and youth currently experience. Solutions require transformational change in how we think about and invest in strategies that work by building strong families and communities capable of supporting the many vital needs children enter the world with—such as physical growth, meeting developmental milestones, quality childcare and education, and healthy relationships with supportive adults— known as “whole child health.”

What can you, as a prevention professional do to enhance the lives of children and families in -your community?  One way is to assure that all prevention programming in your community is not only evidence-based but also is delivered with fidelity.

Evidence-Based refer to Registries such as BluePrints for Healthy Youth Development (https://www.blueprintsprograms.org/)

Fidelity monitoring refer to the guidance provided by the Evidence-Based program

Practice Reflection

We invite prevention professionals to share their perspective

1. Which of the following have you been involved in within your community?

• Selecting or advocating for evidence-based programs
• Supporting fidelity monitoring or quality improvement
• Cross-sector collaboration (health, educations soc. serv.)
• Workforce training or technical assistance

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2. What would you most like to strengthen next to improve children’s health and wellbeing in your community?

• Evidence-based program selection
• Fidelity and quality monitoring
• Coordination across systems
• Policy or funding alignment

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