256810 Primary Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Jack Westman, MD, MS; member APHA , Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Madison, WI
  
Preventing dependent persons' pregnancies is a public health priority, but, once a dependent person becomes pregnant, secondary and tertiary prevention practices support that dependent parent in spite of unfavorable outcomes and high public costs. The most realistic remedy is to recognize dependent childbirth as an even more serious public health crisis than dependent pregnancy. Setting minimum standards for parenthood would help ensure that newborns have parents capable of raising them. Birth certification can be used to explicitly award parental rights to persons capable of assuming the legal and physical custody of a newborn. Dependent persons' pregnancies would activate Parenthood Planning Teams to arrange awarding temporary parental rights to their custodians, making an adoption plan, or referral to child protective services before childbirth.

Learning Areas:
Other professions or practice related to public health
Public health or related laws, regulations, standards, or guidelines
Public health or related organizational policy, standards, or other guidelines
Social and behavioral sciences
Systems thinking models (conceptual and theoretical models), applications related to public health

Learning Objectives:
1) Define public health principles of primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention as they relate to human services. 2) Identify the disconnections between public health policies and human services and educational practices. 3) Discuss thinking about the rights of newborn babies. 4) Define Parenthood Planning Counseling. 5) Describe a process for the certification of parenthood.

Keywords: Primary Prevention, Child Abuse

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am a professor emeritus of psychiatry and have had extensive experience with abused and neglected children and their families. I am the author of over 140 professional articles and 10 books.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 2076.0: Family Violence Forum's Poster Session