Pinwheels for Prevention Campaign

Pinwheels for Prevention is a new nationwide public awareness campaign for April, Child Abuse Prevention Month. Pinwheels for Prevention was created by Prevent Child Abuse America and its state chapters. It goes beyond making people aware of the issue of child abuse and neglect. It engages people to act to prevent it from ever happening in the first place. Find out what organizations across New York State are doing!          

The campaign is built around the symbol of the pinwheel. Pinwheels are a happy and uplifting symbol of childhood. As a campaign symbol, a pinwheel conveys the message that every child deserves the chance be raised in a healthy, safe, and nurturing environment.

Ideas for implementing a Pinwheels for Prevention campaign include:       

• Choose a highly visible location and “plant” a pinwheel “garden.” Equate pinwheels with the number of children served by your agency or the number of births in your community. Use your pinwheels to promote the good you are doing in your community. Pinwheels, however, do not stand for deaths from child abuse or reported cases of child abuse. Pinwheels for Prevention is a positive campaign focused on solutions.
• Offer people in your community the chance to make a personal statement in support of your work by purchasing pinwheels.
• Let the media know about your pinwheel garden and its significance.
• Ask your local radio stations to run public service announcements in support of your campaign.

If you or your organization is interested in taking part in the Pinwheels for Prevention Campaign and would like to order pinwheels  please contact Jennifer Dailey at 518-445-1273 ext 105 or jdailey@preventchildabuseny.org.

If your organization is not located in New York, please contact the Prevent Child Abuse Chapter in your state. To find contact information for your state go here 

      

Comments

[Geoff Brown]

We as a society need to get smarter about detecting and reporting child abuse. For example, teachers often notice signs of child abuse but don't know how to talk to the student about it. So the abuse goes unreported. There's a new online role-playing tool that lets teachers practice a conversation with a possible child abuse victim, getting expert feedback after every choice. (It was co-written by a former Minnesota police detective.) There's a free version and a CEU-version for teachers. Hopefully, practical tools like this will help all of us to crack down on child abuse more effectively.