The regular session of the Colorado General Assembly kicked off on Wednesday, January 12th, and Illuminate Colorado is continuing its commitment to ensuring Colorado’s state policies build brighter childhoods for all Coloradans.
Illuminate has prioritized 2022 policy solutions to be responsive to what Colorado families need today. In addition, and built on research-informed protective factors, the Illuminate Colorado Policy Framework offers an organized approach for advancing family strengthening now and into the future.
Click here to see the full Policy Framework with key highlights about how each policy builds specific protective factors in Colorado, or read the high-level summary of both below.
In 2022, we will be particularly focusing our advocacy efforts to:
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- Dedicate ongoing funding for community education about child sexual abuse prevention
- Improve Colorado Works for families
- Ensure child care access for parents accessing behavioral health care
- Support the recommendations of the Home Visiting Investment Task Force
- Standardize mandatory reporting
Illuminating Policy Prevents Child Maltreatment
The Illuminate Colorado 2022 Policy Agenda highlights policies that build one or more protective factors in Colorado. But more broadly, Illuminate approaches its advocacy efforts based on the following framework:
Primary Prevention
These strategies build protective factors in all families to prevent child maltreatment before it occurs–including advancing equity by addressing systemic barriers to building protective factors.
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- Prioritize primary prevention in federal and state budgets by investing in proven services and professional education that support families and keep kids safe.
- Strengthen economic security for families.
- Implement family-friendly work policies.
Secondary Prevention
This focused strategy builds protective factors in families in high stress situations to prevent child maltreatment before it occurs.
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- Ensure and expand tailored, non-stigmatizing, and culturally responsive support for families impacted by:
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- Behavioral health, including both parental and pediatric
- Intellectual and developmental disabilities, including fetal alcohol spectrum disorders
- Intimate partner violence
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- Ensure and expand tailored, non-stigmatizing, and culturally responsive support for families impacted by:
Tertiary Prevention
This strategy builds protective factors in families to prevent recurrence of child maltreatment–including addressing systemic barriers to healing and recovery.
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- Ensure communities identify and support children and families when abuse and neglect has occurred, focusing on creating equitable access to services to support healing and recovery.
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- Ensure communities identify and support children and families when abuse and neglect has occurred, focusing on creating equitable access to services to support healing and recovery.
Investing in programs and policies that support families to overcome and bounce back from life’s challenges enables children to achieve their potential and grow up to be good neighbors and productive community members. It is essential for elected officials and policy makers to understand how to prevent child maltreatment and listen to parents in every community.
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