Strategy
CSF’s efforts to prevent child abuse include developing and disseminating child-safety education, ensuring resources reach those best positioned to protect children. CSF’s national strategy centers on strengthening the mandated reporter workforce, which represents over 28 million professionals responsible for identifying and reporting child abuse and neglect.
Theory of Change
As a result of our strategy, we theorize that:
The public will develop a stronger ability to recognize and report child abuse, leading to more informed, actionable reports.
Child protection will shift from being solely a professional duty to a shared community responsibility, fostering collective vigilance and intervention.
Unconscious bias and subjective assumptions in reporting will decrease, reducing unnecessary child welfare involvement when intervention is not warranted.
Child protection agencies will receive higher-quality reports, enabling more efficient resource allocation and ensuring timely responses to children at genuine risk.
A more informed public will help fill critical gaps caused by high turnover in child welfare, reducing the risk of children falling through the cracks.
Child protection efforts will strengthen sustainably without requiring constant agency expansion—training more individuals over time will create a resilient, community-driven safety net.
Systemic change will occur as child safety education becomes widely accessible, expanding the child protection network and strengthening efforts at every level.
Our Training
The next section outlines how CSF’s strategy is implemented through its national training program for mandated reporters, the cornerstone of our prevention model.
Last updated