Prosperity Abundance in child protection
Community focused child protection is a preventative and enriching activity that all of us can engage daily in. When the term child protection is turned on its head, it simply means, the protection of children.
Many people wrongly suppose that child protection is about catching the baddies that do horrible things to children and having to hear the heart wrenching stories from children about what adults did to them. Statutory child protection may be like that but community focused child protection is about all the things you do, without thinking, that keep your children protected and secure.
Every time you put shoes on your child, every time you place a hat on their head when outside in the sun, each time you provide a balanced and healthy meal, you are doing community focused child protection.
After fifteen years of working in the sexual assault child protection field I was deficit focused. If I didn’t see or hear a horrendous story of child abuse I thought I hadn’t worked hard enough! The deficits trapped inside my head robbed me on energy of passion and of desire to continue to protect children. I knew I was in danger of major burn out.
Taking steps to change my thinking, I began to practice prosperity abundance. Rather than continuing to see deficits I began to notice and celebrate the abundance of people doing things to support and protect children. I began to notice the amount of parents who didn’t harm their children and who understood the difference between growth stimulated play and unstructured play because, “Mummy wants to do something else.”
I was pleasantly surprised with the prosperous nature of community focused child protection and the way it came so easily to many parents…without even realising they were protecting children. I decided to make a daily habit of doing a community child protection audit. Now, rather than seeing deficits and child harm, I surround myself with the prosperity abundance of child protection.
Thank you to all of those parents out there who strive to give their children a wonderful and safe life. I love the way you play, talk, hold hands, laugh, push the swings, gently remind about hats and shoes, supervise beside the pond without damaging natural curiosity and take a keen interest in capitalising upon every teachable moment that crosses your path. I am grateful that I have begun to re-notice how committed our communities are toward protecting our most valuable resource: children.
Look around you, what prosperity abundance do you see?
Other Imaginif articles that you may be interested in:
The cost of caring; vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, burn out
Protect children from Poisons in the home.
