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Melissa Hackett is the coordinator of the Maine Child Welfare Action Network.
Every April, Maine joins the rest of the country in recognizing Child Abuse Prevention Month — a time to reflect on what keeps children safe and what we can do to support the wellbeing of families in our communities.
If we want fewer children involved in the child welfare system, we have to look early and broadly: at what helps families stay stable and helps children thrive.
All Maine parents want the same thing for their children: safety, health and a fair chance to reach their full potential. But too many families find it difficult to meet basic needs. Housing costs are high and affordable housing is scarce. The same is true of child care. And we all know the pressure of rising health insurance costs and the difficulty accessing health and mental health care. When families are stretched in these ways, stress builds and risk grows.
This is where child safety really begins.
Research across many fields, including health care and aviation, confirms that systems work best when they focus on preventing breakdowns, not just responding after something goes wrong. In child welfare, this means making sure families can meet basic needs — stable, affordable housing, access to health and mental health care, reliable child care and transportation — before an emergency requires intervention. When stress builds without relief, small problems compound and wear builds up across the system — and the consequences can become more severe.
In child welfare, this means recognizing that safety doesn’t begin with an investigation, but much earlier with whether families have the stability and support they need to care for their children.
Maine has taken meaningful steps in this direction. Last year, the state clarified that poverty is not neglect. That change recognizes an important truth: families struggling to pay for food or rent need support, not investigation.
And this session, the Legislature approved legislation strengthening Maine’s approach to mandated reporting — an important step toward ensuring that when concerns arise, families are connected to the right help at the right time.
We now have an opportunity to build on this progress by strengthening the conditions that keep families stable long before a report is ever made, including: stable, affordable housing; equitable access to quality health and mental health care; reliable child care and transportation; and substance use and domestic violence services.
When families lack these supports, the child welfare system is often asked to respond to problems it is not designed to solve — poverty, housing instability, untreated health needs. That pulls attention and resources away from situations where children may truly be unsafe and where child welfare expertise resides.
We also need to ensure that there is clear policy guidance on when a report to child welfare is necessary. Legislation approved this session supports the collaborative work of the Mandated Reporting and Community Supporting Initiative, where state and community partners and parents are working together to understand and respond to opportunities for improvement. This includes improving education for mandated reporters and emphasizing opportunities for how they can best support families. For anyone interested in learning more or looking for ways to contribute, Maine’s Child Safety and Family Well-Being Plan provides a framework to identify and engage in efforts that keep children safe by keeping families strong.
Child Abuse and Prevention Month is a reminder that keeping children safe is a shared responsibility. Policymakers play a significant role, but so do communities, health care and service providers, faith groups, employers, schools, and all of us who care about the healthy development of our next generation. By supporting policies that keep families stable and support overall wellbeing, we can protect children more effectively — and build stronger communities across Maine.
