Teller County Community Coalition to Prevent Child Maltreatment

In 2017, a number of other local community partners used the Child Maltreatment Prevention Framework for Action tool to hold a series of planning meetings, review a community profile to gain a deeper understanding of local needs and trends; listen to parents about what they need, determine capacity of existing services and identify gaps and opportunities in Teller County to strengthen families.

Contact information

To give families in Adams County the additional support they need, ECPAC applied for and received a Child Maltreatment Prevention Framework for Action (Framework) Community Planning Grant in October 2017, putting the county on the front lines of planning efforts aimed at preventing child abuse and neglect, and strengthening families. In addition to financial assistance from the Colorado Office of Early Childhood, the grant included extensive support from Early Milestones Colorado, a nonprofit intermediary that serves as a statewide conduit for best practices and high-impact ideas that promote success for young children and families in Colorado.

Coalition Partners

Child Maltreatment Prevention
Framework for Action

This framework is designed as a tool to guide strategic thinking at the state and local level, about resource investments to prevent child maltreatment and promote child well-being. As this tool is used collectively across the state, the resulting alignment of strategies will maximize the impact on shared outcomes.

Teller County plans to prevent child maltreatment

Teller County’s community child maltreatment prevention planning resulted in five primary goals and corresponding objectives:

Expand family support services available to families in Teller County to reduce child maltreatment.

  • Expand family advocate support and services available in Teller County to a level that eliminates wait lists for families seeking family support services and preventive/universal support within the community.

Impact community norm around accessing parent/family support programs.

  • Launch a community-wide stigma-reduction campaign impacting parental help-seeking attitudes as evidenced by a positive increase in parent survey responses to the frequency of seeking help and asking for advice/information about raising children.

Increase opportunities for families to build social capital and reduce parental isolation, resulting in increased parent engagement and protective factors for families.

  • Identify an opportunity to build a centrally located family center that serves all of Teller County, and provides an accessible space for families to interact and build social capital, access available resources, and engage in their community.

Reduce the barriers and frustration that families experience in accessing family support services.

  • Established inter-agency referral and communication policies and procedures will streamline the intake process for families accessing services and will result in an increase in number of successful referrals to additional services and an improved continuum of care.

Expand evidence-based practices in family support services to reduce child abuse and neglect.

  • Implement and expand evidence-based practices throughout the matrix of partner agencies to ensure measurable outcomes and performance monitoring for family support services.