ANNAPOLIS, Md. — The month of April will now be known as National Child Abuse Prevention Month. Gov. Larry Hogan made this announcement to recognize the importance of communities working together to prevent child abuse.
Child abuse can have a lifelong impact on a person's health and wellbeing. Preventing abuse requires community awareness, engagement and reporting of abuse to authorities.
Hogan has been supporting efforts to end child abuse since 2015. His administration has invested more than $227 million in grants to support children and youth since then.
The funding supports programs like Handle with Care, which uses trauma informed approaches to address and prevent further child abuse.
The Governor's Office of Crime Prevention, Youth and Victim Services seek to provide every child with access to child advocacy centers. To accomplish this, they partner with statewide organizations to promote healing for children who've experienced child abuse. Hogan also issued an executive order to direct all of these state agencies to address childhood experiences.
To raise awareness for Child Abuse Prevention Month, Government House was lit in blue on April 1.
