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FREDERICKSBURG FREE LANCE-STAR ARTICE: TEMPORARY CARE PROGRAM AIMS TO CURB CHILD ABUSE

Children’s Home Society of Virginia’s Temporary Infant Care program provides critical resources and support for at-risk infants and birth mothers in crisis.

“When children enter the foster-care system, parents think they lose all control and can’t get the child back,” said Laura Ash–Brackley, director of social work for Children’s Home Society. “This is a voluntary service to provide a woman some options for her to make a plan with help from us.”

Nearly half of all American children who die from abuse or neglect do so in their first year of life, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

In fiscal year 2013, about three-quarters of Virginia children who died from abuse or neglect were under the age of 4, according to the Virginia Department of Social Services.

No research exists to prove that efforts like the temporary infant-care program reduce child abuse or fatalities, but the idea makes sense, said Deborah Daro, a senior research fellow with Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago.

Learn more about the program in this Free Lance-Star article by clicking here.