The Cultural Adaptation of a Community‐Based Child Maltreatment Prevention Initiative

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12193
• Published date: 01 June 2017
• Author: Jill D. McLeigh,Asher Ben‐Arieh,Bilha Davidson‐Arad,Carmit Katz
• Date: 01 June 2017

The Cultural Adaptation of a Community-Based

Child Maltreatment Prevention Initiative

JILL D. MCLEIGH*

CARMIT KATZ

†

BILHA DAVIDSON-ARAD

†

ASHER BEN-ARIEH

‡

A unique primary prevention effort, Strong Communities for Children (St rong Commu-

nities), focuses on changing attitudes and expectations regarding communities’ collective

responsibilities for the safety of children. Findings from a 6-year pilot of the initiative in

South Carolina have shown promise in reducing child maltreatment, but efforts to ad apt

the initiative to different cultural contexts have been lacking. No models exist for adapting

an initiative that takes a community-level approach to ensuring children’s safety. Thus,

this article addresses the gap by providing an overview of the original initiative, how the

initiative was adapted to the Israeli context, and lessons learned from the experience.

Building on conceptualizations of cultural adaptation by Castro et al. (Prevention Science,

5, 2004, 41) and Resnicow et al. (Ethnicity and Disease, 9, 1999, 11), sources of nonfit (i.e.,

sociodemographic traits, political conflict, government services, and the presence and role

of community organizations) were identified and deep and surface structure modifications

were made to the content and delivery. Ultimately, this article describes the adaption and

dissemination of a community-based child maltreatment prevention initiative in Tel Aviv,

Israel, and addresses researchers’ calls for more publications describing the ad aptation of

interventions and the procedures that need to be implemented to achieve cultura l

relevance.

Keywords: Child Abuse and Neglect; Primary Prevention; Cultural Adaptation;

Neighborhoods; Israel

Fam Proc 56:393–407, 2017

INTRODUCTION

Child maltreatment, a significant social problem across the globe, results from complex

interactions of genetic, physiological, behavioral, cultural, social, and environmental

factors. The scale of the problem is astounding. In the United States alone, 6.3 million chil-

dren were referred to child protective services in 2012 (CPS; U.S. Department of Health

and Human Services, 2013). To date, efforts to prevent child maltreatment have been

*Kempe Center for Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect, University of Colorado School of

Medicine, Aurora, CO.

†

Bob Shapell School of Social Work, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel.

‡

Paul Baerwald School of Social Work, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Jill D. McLeigh, Kempe Center for

Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect, University of Colorado School of Medicine,13123 E

16th Ave., Aurora, CO 80045. E-mail: jill.mcleigh@ucdenver.edu.

The authors wish to thank the Haruv Institute for its support of the Strong Communities for Children

initiative in Tel Aviv, Israel. We also thank Gary B. Melton and Robin Kimbrough-Melton for their guid-

ance and support throughout the process.

393

Family Process, Vol. 56, No. 2, 2017 ©2015 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12193