Louisville Collaboration to Prevent Child Abuse, Youth and Family Violence

Led by Family & Children’s Place (fiscal agent, assuring a range of prevention, behavioral health, and crime victim/witness services), the Louisville Collaboration to Prevent Child Abuse, Youth and Family Violence advances a vision of a more coordinated system in Louisville, Kentucky. Multiple existing community-based organizations will provide an infrastructure of evidence-based prevention, education, and crime victim support activities - including access to high-quality mental health, and crisis intervention services. Through enhanced partnerships among human service agencies in the state’s largest urban area (768,000), the project will foster the development of a more integrated continuum of comprehensive support and prevention services. Investment in a collaboration of organizations positions the community to go deeper in addressing local conditions; providing support through a coordinated and sustainable interagency model. 

Organizational partners engaged as subrecipients of the project are: Boys & Girls Clubs of Kentuckiana (delinquency prevention focus), filling a gap between school & home, providing safe environments where youth participate in life-changing programs and form supportive relationships with peers & caring adults; Center for Women & Families (crime victim/witness services focus, with emphasis on infusing prevention into every interaction), assisting victims of Domestic/Intimate Partner Violence through hotline, emergency shelter, and other services; Exploited Children's Help Organization (child maltreatment prevention focus), teaching children and adults about universal strategies and Safety Rules that apply to bullying, digital dangers, and all types of child abuse through the “Transforming Our Communities” program.

Leveraging the efforts of longstanding law enforcement partners (local, state, federal) and multidisciplinary team members involved in the criminal justice system (including prosecutors), the project will implement a model of meaningful and intentional service integration through nonprofit agencies and assure non-duplication of efforts and measurable community impact.

The program seeks to ensure a more collaborative system of care for those impacted by, or at risk of, maltreatment and violence. This includes evidence-based prevention and frontline treatment services that address the health needs (particularly mental health) of those identified as victims, and improves indicators of success for at-risk youth. The overarching goal of the partnership is to provide an improved social safety net for those impacted by, or at risk of, abuse or violence, and to build a well-coordinated system of support for targeted interventions preventing juvenile delinquency, child maltreatment, and family violence. Evaluation efforts will measure the levels of interagency coordination as well as overall prevention, education, and victim support outcomes of the partnership.