New publication from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention - The Effects of Childhood Stress on Health Across the Lifespan.

We received the following information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about a new publication that we thought you would find interesting:

Stress is an inevitable part of life. It helps children develop the skills they need to cope with and adapt to new and potentially threatening situations throughout life. However, the beneficial aspects of stress diminish when it is severe enough to over­whelm a child's ability to cope effectively. Intensive and prolonged stress can lead to a variety of short- and long-term negative health effects. It can disrupt early brain development and compromise functioning of the nervous and immune systems. In addition, childhood stress can lead to health problems later in life including alcoholism, depression, eating disorders, heart disease, cancer, and other chronic diseases.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention's new publication The Effects of Childhood Stress on Health Across the Lifespan summarizes the research on childhood stress and its implications for adult health and well-being. Of particular interest is the stress caused by child abuse, neglect, and repeated exposure to intimate partner violence.

This publication provides violence prevention practitioners with ideas about how to incorporate information on childhood stress into their work and can be located online here.

Connecting the Dots…Turning Knowledge into Action. Prevent Child Abuse America’s 2008 National Conference. May 19-22, 2008 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

How do we turn knowledge into action? And how do we take the prevention of child abuse and neglect out of the realm of theory and transform it into a new way of thinking?

We do this by understanding the solutions and the evidence that support these solutions. We learn how to reframe the issue and engage the wider public in a discussion about their role in prevention. We educate ourselves on the policies that can make a difference and how we can support them. We ensure that we stay curious and open to learning everything we can about our work. We also try to stay fresh and recharge whenever and however we can.

Simply speaking, we connect the dots by spending time appreciating the full impact of the actions we take every day. We are all trying to build the kind of the world we want to live in and it starts here, and now, come join us at our 2008 national conference from May 19-22 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and start connecting the dots for yourself.

For more information please visit our website here and to see what's happening at the conference blog please go here.

Prevent Child Abuse America Podcast, Episode One - A conversation with Jim Hmurovich and Marci McCoy-Roth.

We plan to create a series of podcasts focused on the prevention of child abuse and neglect and you can listen to our first one below. This podcast is a conversation between Jim Hmurovich, President & CEO, Prevent Child Abuse America and Marci McCoy-Roth, Officer, Health and Human Services, The PEW Charitable Trusts.

This conversation was held following the release of "Total Estimated Cost of Child Abuse and Neglect in the United States" by PCA America and Time for Reform: Investing in Prevention, Keeping Children Safe At Home by Kids Are Waiting a project of PEW and the "Time for Reform: Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect" press conference and Prevention Symposium held in collaboration with PEW on January 29th in Washington, DC - for more information on these events and reports please visit the PCA America press room here.

JOIN THE WRIGLEY'S "DOUBLE-DOUBLE CHALLENGE" - Doubling our efforts to prevent child abuse and neglect nationwide.

We are happy to let you know that the The Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company and NBA Cares invite you to participate in the first Wrigley's™ brands "Double-Double Challenge" to support Prevent Child Abuse America.

Between February 19 and April 16, whenever an NBA player records a double-double, Wrigley's will donate $50 to PCA America up to $50,000. A "double-double" is achieved when an individual player in a game accumulates a double digit total in any two of these categories: points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocked shots.

During the same period, Wrigley's Doublemint invites you to join the Challenge and make a financial pledge for every double-double recorded in an NBA game to help us support PCA America and its state chapters nationwide.

To learn more and pledge please go here and to take a look at the press release launching the challenge please visit PCA America's press room here.

Thank you in advance for your time and interest.

2008 Federal Legislative Priorities

There is always a lot of interest in what we are doing in terms of advocacy, and so we thought we would share our 2008 Federal Legislative Priorities with you today - see below. For more information about these priorities and the role you can play in supporting them please visit our website here.

1. Enact Federal Home Visiting Legislation

2. Increase Federal Funding for Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Services (i.e., CAPTA, PSSF, and SSBG)

3. Reauthorize the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act

4. Reauthorize the State Children’s Health Insurance Program

5. Increase Federal Investments in the Full Continuum of Child Welfare Services

6. Enact Shaken Baby Syndrome Prevention Legislation

Who we are and what we hope to do with the Changing The Way We Think About Prevention blog.

Hello and welcome to Prevent Child Abuse America's new blog, "Changing The Way We Think About Prevention." You will find a brief description of PCA America below, and we hope you will consider signing up for our newsletter, which you can do on our website, but first we want to invite you to visit this blog regularly as we update you on what we are doing to prevent child abuse and neglect and the role you can play in this effort.

Our plan with this blog is talk about the value we place on our children and whether our policies and actions support that value. We also want to talk about the child development process as it relates to prevention.

Greater attention to the child development process means healthier children who grow up to be more engaged in our communities, more productive in the workplace and more participatory in our nation's efforts to be competitive in the global economy.

We want people to understand that abuse and neglect have consequences for children long into their adulthood and often impact our communities through a higher incidence of mental health, delinquency, substance abuse and personal health needs.

We all need to learn more about the prevention of child abuse and neglect so we can start thinking about prevention in a whole new way, decrease adverse experiences and support healthier communities, families and people.

We feel this blog is one means for achieving our goals. We look forward to where this new venture will take us and we are excited to have you join us as we look to build a public dialogue and social movement around the prevention of child abuse and neglect.

Brief Description

Prevent Child Abuse America (PCA America) was founded in 1972. PCA America is the first organization in the United States whose sole mission is “to prevent the abuse and neglect of our nation’s children.” It undertakes its mission by affecting change at the governmental and community level on the systems that support the full range of services needed to promote the child development process and provide parents with better conditions to be the kind of parents they want to be. Based in Chicago, PCA America has state chapters in 43 states and 413 Healthy Families America (HFA) sites in 41 states. Together, approximately 500 staff in the National Office and chapters manages over 353 different locally based strategies to meet the mission of the organization, and an additional 2900 home visitation workers, supervisors and program managers oversee and implement HFA.