Our Bold New Agenda

How many children should live in harm’s way?

We had to ask ourselves this very question last year as we undertook to create a five year Strategic Agenda. Our mission was, and will continue to be, to prevent child abuse and reduce its devastating impact, but it was finally time to determine a number we would hold ourselves accountable to in the coming years — will we leave behind 50 percent of San Francisco’s children, or 25, or 10.

Zero. That was our answer. It was our answer because we refuse to choose which child deserves to be hurt, because none do. Now it is our goal, and we have 50 years to achieve it. Bold, yes — but every child deserves to be safe.

To be perfectly clear, we will end child abuse in San Francisco.

Why 50 years? Because that is about two generations (a generation is defined as 24 years). We know that child abuse perpetuates from generation to generation — often the abusers are also victims — and we must break this cycle if we are going to end child abuse in our community.

This is the long term goal. The Strategic Agenda itself closely aligns with much of the work the Prevention Center is already doing. The Strategic Agenda is focused and clear, with actionable steps to start us on this ambitious path.

Take a moment to read the entire Strategic Agenda (it is only two pages) and leave your comments and feedback below.

Here are the highlights:

• Focus on working with the families most at-risk for child abuse
• Educate and empower every individual in the community to protect children
• Work with both the adult caregivers / parents and their children
• Use the Five Protective Factors as a tool to build strong families
• Use an evidenced-informed approach in our programming
• Work collectively with other community organizations to broaden our impact

Here is a .pdf of the Strategic Agenda: http://sfcapc.org/strategic-agenda

Three things that every San Franciscan needs to know:

1: Child abuse can be prevented; like polio and poverty, it must be eradicated from society.

2: The Prevention Center has a plan of how to begin a path that will end child abuse in San Francisco by 2066.

3: It is the responsibility of every San Franciscan to protect the children in our community. That’s you.