Policy strategies for the prevention of multiple forms of violence against children and youth

Following recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in their technical packages for child maltreatment and IPV prevention (Fortson, Klevens, Merrick, Gilbert, & Alexander, 2015; Niolon et al., 2017), we propose to continue to build the scientific evidence base for the effects of paid family leave and child care subsidies on rates of child maltreatment and IPV, variations in the effects of these policies for key subgroups (e.g., race/ethnicity), and the potential mechanisms by which these policies have an effect on violence outcomes. Using the Family Stress Model (Masarik & Conger, 2017) and the World Health Organization’s Commission on the Social Determinants of Health Framework (Solar & Irwin, 2010), we hypothesize that states with paid family leave will have lower rates of child maltreatment and IPV as will those with more generous child care subsidies and access to pre-k.