Child Abuse Prevention Events

Each year, PFSA creates and participates in community events all over Pennsylvania to raise awareness and encourage community action on child abuse prevention. During National Child Abuse Prevention Month (April), PFSA undertakes a multi-tiered effort to encourage Pennsylvanians to get a clearer picture of the tragedy of child abuse and what role they can play in preventing it.

Click here to see our 2017 Child Abuse Prevention Month events!

WORKING TOGETHER TO PREVENT CHILD ABUSE

Child abuse and neglect is a problem that’s too big for any one non-profit organization, government office, or law enforcement agency to solve. Everyone has a role to play in preventing child abuse and everyone can do something to help. If parents, neighbors, faith-based organizations, businesses, medical professionals – the entire community – work together, child abuse can be prevented. When we realize that we’re all connected, we begin to see solutions and make commitments to help.

Working Together to Prevent Child Abuse is a way to begin finding solutions. It’s an opportunity to identify what you’re already doing as an individual or a group, talk with others to come up with more ideas, and share those ideas with others via creation of hexagons.

When placed together, the hexagons are a great reminder that each of us is part of a community that cares about keeping kids safe. Each life touches the lives of others and when we work together we can prevent child abuse.

EVERYONE can be part of Working Together. No matter who you are, where you live, or what your life circumstances, you can be part of preventing child abuse. Join us!

Click here to get starte d! Information and instructions here.

Download the hexagon template here.

Painting for Prevention

Over the past ten years, 28 murals have been created in 19 counties in every region of the state. The murals have been painted by families receiving child protective services, incarcerated parents, parents in recovery from addiction, as well as folks shopping on a Saturday at the local mall or farmer’s market. We’ve partnered with early childhood programs, universities, county agencies and our local affiliates. Each mural has its own character and message.

See our murals

Sometimes, as time passes after an awareness event we tend to forget the message of the day. With child abuse prevention, remembering that family support and intervention can mean the difference between life and death for a child makes awareness that much more important. Our Painting for Prevention murals serve as “ambassadors” delivering the message that child abuse can be prevented, throughout the year. Hundreds of blue ribbon pins are distributed at each of the events. We partner with Heart 2 Art, a Scranton-based arts education group, to design the murals, which are then painted by families and community members in each of the locations. Each mural stays in the community in which it was created. See where murals are located.

be a blue ribbon champion for kids!

April is recognized nationally as Child Abuse Prevention Month and the blue ribbon is the symbol of the physical, mental, and emotional bruises left on children who suffer abuse. PFSA and PSECU are teaming up to recognize publicly some of the professional, volunteer, and everyday heroes in our communities who step up to safeguard children. They’re folks who recognize both the terrible financial and emotional toll child abuse exacts on our society, and who have protected kids. We urge you to join us in this campaign by nominating someone you know and respect who is an ambassador, an advocate, a guardian angel for the commonwealth’s most precious resource – our children.

Why Blue Ribbons?

In the spring of 1989, a grandmother named Bonnie Finney took a stand against child abuse in Norfolk, Virginia. She tied a blue ribbon on the antenna of her mini van in remembrance of her late grandson and as a signal to her community that child abuse continues to be a devastating social plague.

Her grandson, Michael Wayne "Bubba" Dickenson and his siblings lived an at-risk existence in an abusive home environment. Despite Finney’s efforts to intervene on behalf of her grandchildren, his mother’s boyfriend murdered three-year-old Bubba. His body was found, bound, beaten and bruised, in a weighted toolbox at the bottom of a canal.

"One day I was just thinking about all the bruises I had seen on my grandchildren," Finney said. "I just decided I was going to tie a blue ribbon on my van. Why blue? I intend never to forget the battered, bruised bodies of my grandchildren. Blue serves as a constant reminder to me to fight for protection for our children."

Finney’s personal campaign to raise public awareness of child maltreatment was joined by a Norfolk parent assistance program and a local radio station. Soon, stores, businesses, schools, churches, civic organizations and social service agencies were participating in the campaign and thousands of blue ribbons were displayed in the name of child abuse prevention. The spirit of her blue ribbon grew and inspired a statewide community-based effort to prevent child abuse in every town, every community and every city and county.

Bonnie Finney's simple act of education and remembrance has inspired a nationwide movement and led states throughout the country participate in the campaign by designating the month of April each year Child Abuse Prevention Month.

"The blue ribbon serves as a constant reminder to fight for the protection of children," Finney explained. "We must protect our most precious gift of all - our children. Even if we just change one child's life, it would be worth it. I don't want other parents or grandparents to go through what we've been through. During the month of April, I hope all Americans will wear a blue ribbon, put one on their cars, give them to friends and tell anyone who asks what it means. You may save a child's life."