The Delaware Community Foundation has awarded grants totaling $220,000 to three statewide, multi-agency initiatives to expand mentoring, reduce child sexual abuse and empower financially vulnerable Delawareans.
The DCF’s collaborative grant program seeks to fund initiatives in which multiple nonprofit agencies work together to maximize their collective capabilities and provide powerful services to Delawareans statewide. Every three years, the DCF solicits applications and selects one or more initiatives to fund for the subsequent three years. Grant money comes from the earnings of the DCF’s unrestricted fund.
The YMCA of Delaware will receive $100,000 to support “Stewards of Children Sexual Child Abuse Prevention.”
This program’s goals are aligned with recommendations put forward by Linda Ammons, dean of the Widener University School of Law, in the Independent Review of the Earl Bradley case in 2010. The program seeks to better protect children from sexual abuse in Delaware by increasing knowledge, improving attitudes and positively changing adult child protective behaviors for the long term.
To achieve this outcome, the program seeks to train 35,000 adults (5 percent of adult Delawareans) over the next five years using the evidence-based “Stewards of Children” program developed by Darkness to Light, a national nonprofit organization seeking to prevent child sexual abuse. Approximately 15 nonprofit organizations and government agencies will partner in this project.
“Evidence shows that by training 5 percent of our population how to identify and report child sexual abuse, we will hit a ‘tipping point’ that will change our whole culture and attitude toward protecting our children, so that child safety becomes the norm,” said Michael Graves, president of the YMCA of Delaware.
To read the full press release click here.
