Georgia Conference on Child Abuse Prevention

Professionals who support children and families involved in the child welfare system are often front-line witnesses to the most extreme and traumatic events occurring in modern society today. As human beings, whether we realize it or not, this work affects us — especially as societal trends increasingly jeopardize the stability of the family and healthy interpersonal relationships.

In this context, what does hope look like in today’s world? How can we hold hope from both a place of authenticity and radical acceptance of reality? This presentation aims to connect advances in relational neurobiology and trauma-informed care to the concept of hope, echoing the lessons and wisdom from previous generations that found ways to thrive and flourish together amidst climates of uncertainty and instability.

For decades, child abuse prevention efforts have recognized the critical role of mental health support for caregivers—yet traditional referral-based counseling models often fail to engage the families who need services most. This workshop presents a 20-year journey of developing an innovative, community-based counseling model within a child abuse prevention agency that dramatically increases engagement and retention among high-risk families.

Originating from the recognition that families faced multiple barriers—including lack of insurance, transportation challenges, childcare needs, intimidation, and systemic distrust—this model reimagines access to care. By embedding counseling services directly within the agency and addressing practical and emotional barriers (including in-home therapy, minimal paperwork, transportation support, childcare, and no-cost services), the program achieved a 90% initial visit retention rate compared to 50% for traditional external referrals.

Participants will explore the development, implementation, and outcomes of this model, including lessons learned over two decades. The session will highlight how reducing barriers is not ancillary—but central—to effective intervention.

Children are increasingly shifting the way they seek help—texting friends, searching online, watching videos for advice, or using artificial intelligence to ask questions like “Why am I sad?” or “What should I do if someone is mean to me?” With access to technology beginning at an early age, these patterns are shaping how children navigate emotions and challenges. While these tools provide immediate responses, they cannot replace the protective power of human connection.
 
This interactive 90-minute workshop explores how these evolving help-seeking behaviors impact child well-being and highlights connection as a critical protective factor. Grounded in Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs), the session introduces the LOUDER framework as a practical, relationship-centered approach to strengthening relationships across families, schools, and communities.
 
Through real-world scenarios and reflection, participants will learn how everyday interactions—listening, understanding behavior, and showing up consistently—serve as forms of collective care that strengthen families, prevent harm, promote resilience, and support healing. Participants will leave with actionable strategies and a caregiver-friendly LOUDER Than AI guide to strengthen connection and sustain their capacity to show up consistently and with care.

The Preventing and Responding to Sexual Abuse in YSO’s Guide is an update to the 2007 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report on preventing child sexual abuse in youth serving organizations.  Among the many updates are a renewed focus on populations at highest risk for child sexual abuse, creating safe digital spaces for youth, and strategies for preventing youth problematic sexual behaviors.  Prevent Child Abuse America is thrilled to serve as the dissemination partner for this very important work.

Child maltreatment is a pervasive problem in the United States with significant economic, health, and human capital consequences. Children under age one experience the highest rates of child abuse and neglect and the greatest likelihood of fatality from maltreatment, including shaken baby syndrome. Publicly-funded paid family leave (PFL) programs in the U.S. have been found to improve risk factors for maltreatment including increased parental time investments in children, better maternal and child health, and household income protection in the months surrounding a birth.

We examine whether state PFL programs in the U.S. affect infant maltreatment. Using administrative data on child maltreatment reports to Child Protective Services (CPS), we compare reports of infants under age 1 in PFL states to reports of infants in non-PFL states before and after PFL was implemented. We find that PFL reduced reports of infant maltreatment by about 14 percent, and home removals by about 46 percent. We also observe fewer substantiated reports by about 22 percent. These results imply PFL has spillovers to the child welfare system that should be accounted for.

Being in foster care can lead to a number of barriers that can result in young people feel like they are starting on a more difficult playing field from their peers. We want to give you all tools and real examples of how to even that playing field. This panel features Lived Experience Experts—current and former youth with experience in foster care (ages 14+) from Georgia.  The core question this panel will address is: How can adult supporters increase Positive Childhood Experiences (PCEs) for youth who have or are experiencing foster care?

Lived Experience Expert panelists will share concrete strategies for: being a safe space for feelings to be expressed, supporting traditions, offering stability during difficult times, fostering belonging in school despite moves, and becoming one of the consistent, caring non-parent adults in a young person’s life.  As an adult sup[porter, you are in the position to help these young people break generational cycles, come learn with us, how to do that!

Attendees will also hear honest accounts of transitioning from foster care to adulthood, learn why peer community is a protective factor, and see real policy wins and macro-level impact that EmpowerMEnt’s lived experience experts have achieved in Georgia’s child welfare system and what that involvement has been like and meant to them.   We are also happy to share resources to help you, help youth you work with. Especially those transitioning into adulthood.
We're excited for this to be an interactive panel as well and will have time and space for you to ask questions directly as well.  

EmpowerMEnt is a pioneering youth-led and youth-focused organization dedicated to training and empowering young people (ages 14+) who are currently in or have experienced foster care. Our mission is to directly influence, change, and improve the way policies are written and administered, ensuring that decisions affecting youth in foster care are made with their direct input and lived experience. "Nothing About us, Without us."

Disclaimers: No CEUs are provided for this presentation.
Supportive Disclaimer: All of our lived experience experts are trained with a model called Strategic Sharing: the intentional, purposeful process of telling your lived experience and impactful personal story safely to achieve a specific goal, such as advocacy, education, or connection.  We do this in effort to prevent retraumatizing oneself or the audience.  Georgia EmpowerMEnt provides preparation and debrief to our lived experience experts to ensure their mental health and emotional safety. 

Families experiencing crisis—particularly those impacted by abuse, neglect, or trauma—often navigate multiple systems at once. When child advocacy centers and school districts work collaboratively, they create a more responsive, family‑centered approach that prioritizes student safety, stability, and healing.


This presentation will highlight the collaborative partnership between Cobb Child Advocacy Center (SafePath) and the Cobb County School District, focusing on how intentional information‑sharing and cross‑system communication can better support students and families during times of crisis. Presenters will discuss practical strategies for sharing relevant information to support students at school while also ensuring that schools provide meaningful feedback to the Child Advocacy Center to inform ongoing advocacy and intervention. Presenters will discuss how centering family voice and needs promotes trust, reduces retraumatization, and supports long‑term safety and healing.


Attendees will gain insight into how centering families, building trust, and breaking down silos between education and child advocacy systems improves outcomes for students, enhances coordinated responses, and strengthens abuse prevention efforts.

This workshop presents findings from a 2025 mixed-methods study conducted by Georgia State University and Saprea measuring public perceptions of child sexual abuse (CSA) among Georgia residents. The study worked to establish baseline perception data using both a representative panel sample (n=2,819) and a convenience sample (n=338), with responses analyzed across demographic and geographic dimensions.

Attendees will explore what Georgians believe about the prevalence, preventability, and community impact of CSA, and how those beliefs vary by demographic indicators like familial status, rural/metro areas, and ethnicity. The workshop also presents qualitative findings drawn from over 1,500 open-ended responses,  that reflect the public's own language and priorities for prevention. This session is designed to help practitioners, policymakers, and educators translate perception data into more targeted, community-responsive prevention strategies.

Parents who experience significant stress, fear, or trauma during pregnancy, birth, or early infancy may come to perceive their child as unusually vulnerable or “fragile.” Although this perception often emerges from understandable protective instincts, it can gradually shape caregiving in ways that limit the child’s normal development, autonomy, learning, socialization, and tolerance of ordinary childhood experiences. In more severe cases, this vulnerability-based parenting pattern may contribute to excessive medicalization, healthcare overuse, or even medical harm.

Caregiver burnout often develops long before a family reaches a crisis. However, it is often overlooked or misunderstood. Research shows that parents of children with disabilities face increased risks of depression 57%; anxiety 35% and caregiver burden 49% (Soh et al., 2025; Bourke-Taylor et al., 2022)

The day-to-day demands: managing behavioral challenges, time pressures, and social isolation are constant. Caregiver wellbeing directly impacts child outcomes. Stress and burnout can reduce quality of care, harm family dynamics, and limit the child’s development and resilience. Stronger caregiver wellbeing supports positive childhood experiences, adaptive behavior, and overall family functioning (Masefield et al., 2020)

This session invites providers to share their own experiences and insights from daily practice, exploring how burnout shows up in families and which early signs are often missed. Participants will discuss practical ways to support caregivers and support reduction in burnout.

Through real-world scenarios, reflection, and open discussion, attendees will learn from each other’s experiences and collaboratively explore prevention strategies. The session focuses on idea sharing, practical insight, and collective responsibility to support families before they reach a breaking point.

In 2025 the Institute for Survivor Care conducted a large sample study to understand what motivates, hinders, or helps a survivor make a permanent exit from exploitation/trafficking.  The study yielded 189 qualified responses from female victims ages 14-16 from across the U.S.  This presentation highlights the key findings from the study, including challenges to some of the assumptions that have guided the anti-trafficking field over the past two decades.  Findings illustrate the conditions of induction and retention within exploitation, but also provide a clear roadmap of what needs to be in place to effectuate exit and build resiliency from future recidivism.  

Communities already hold the tools needed to prevent child abuse, the challenge is organizing those tools into a coordinated, effective system. This workshop explores how the Community Resilience Model, developed by the Trauma Resource Institute, can be integrated with community resource models to create proactive, trauma-responsive prevention systems.
Participants will learn how to move from fragmented, reactive services to aligned, resilience-centered networks that strengthen protective factors and reduce risk before harm occurs. The session will highlight practical strategies for mapping community assets, building cross-sector partnerships, and embedding trauma-responsive principles into existing systems of care.
In addition, this workshop will introduce pathways for implementing trauma-responsive certification as a mechanism for sustaining community-wide change, increasing organizational alignment, and ensuring consistency in prevention practices.
Attendees will leave with actionable tools to design and implement integrated, measurable, and sustainable approaches to child abuse prevention grounded in resilience, collaboration, and community capacity.

Programs that intentionally create PCEs for children, families, and child care educators strengthen resilience across the caregiving system. Grounded in a strong understanding and application of the Child Care Learning Center (CCLC) Indicator Manual, these efforts become intentional, consistent, and high-quality. The CCLC framework helps child care educators turn knowledge into meaningful daily practices, fostering safe, nurturing, and developmentally appropriate environments. This alignment enhances program quality while deepening the impact of PCEs for children, families, and child care educators alike.