If you or someone you know feels overwhelmed, call Parenting Awareness Michigan (PAM) at 1-800-968-4968 for information about family support resources in your community.
We can help to build strong families and reduce the risk of child abuse by supporting strong protective factors. Protective Factors can be found both in individuals and communities and are important to improve the health and well-being of kids and families in Michigan. This graphic provides a short description for each protective factor.
Families that know how to access resources and have an understanding of the importance of protective factors will be more resilient. Professionals partnering with families and caregivers can utilize the information found in this Protective Factors Conversations Guide to help start the conversation.
For more information on the way you can help to prevent child abuse, check out the 2025 Children Trust Michigan Prevention Toolkit.
Kids need to understand the importance of Body Safety and Boundaries. Teaching them their rights, and empowering them to speak for themselves, will help reduce their risk of being impacted by abuse. Below are resources that can be used to have difficult conversations and help kids navigate these topics.
Empowered kids will take body safety and boundary setting into their own hands. The Body Safety Rules flyer can help to guide them.
Seasoned professionals may experience difficulty identifying physical abuse in children under the age of 4. Recognizing these injuries can be very difficult. The TEN-4-FACESp video will provide a tool to assist in responding to and preventing injuries of physical child abuse.
