Georgia State receives $2 million grant to support programs related to prevention of child abuse

The Georgia State University School of Public Health has received a four-year grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services totaling nearly $2 million to support programs and research related to prevention of child abuse and neglect.

The grant will support dissemination of the SafeCareTM model-an evidence-based child maltreatment prevention program designed by Georgia State researchers-to six new implementation sites. Daniel Whitaker, director of the National SafeCareTM Research and Training Center in the school's Center for Healthy Development, will lead the project, which will also provide each site with the training and implementation support to become fully self-sufficient in the delivery of SafeCareTM.

"Georgia State is a leader in evidence-based child maltreatment prevention research and programs, drawing some of the world's most renowned experts in the field," said Michael P. Eriksen, dean of the School of Public Health. "We are thrilled to continue our work in this area."

Whitaker, who is also director of the Division of Health Promotion and Behavior at the School of Public Health and editor of the leading journal Child Maltreatment, notes that the project has four goals. NSTRC expects to:

1.Establish six new SafeCareTM new sites;
2.Deliver SafeCareTM to about 2,400 families over four years;
3.Expand use of SafeCareTM by each site through training; and
4.Provide capacity for sites to conduct ongoing program evaluation.

Source: Georgia State University