Prevent Child Abuse Utah is the only non-profit in Utah whose sole mission is to prevent child abuse, trafficking, and neglect. Their prevention programs strengthen families, support healthy child and teen development, and influence social change. 

In 1982, Marilyn Sandberg Barr and the Honorable Roger Dutson founded the agency under the name Weber-Morgan Child Abuse Coordinating Council with the goal of educating children and adults on child abuse and providing prevention strategies. In 2003, the agency name was officially changed to Prevent Child Abuse Utah.

In 2014, a member of Prevent Child Abuse Utah’s Board of Directors, Representative Angela Romero, sponsored HB 286. The bill allowed schools to teach students about child abuse prevention. It also mandated all school personnel go through child sexual abuse prevention training. Advocates for the bill included Deondra Brown of the 5 Browns, Elizabeth Smart, and Rabbi Avremi Zippell. The bill passed and the law went into effect that same year. Unfortunately, was an unfunded mandate and no state funds were allocated for child abuse prevention in schools. 

Prevent Child Abuse Utah began working with the Utah State Board of Education and the Utah Department of Health and Human Services to develop approved curricula to be taught in schools. The agency also worked with the Utah State Board of Education to create an online training program for school personnel.

Over the past 10 years, through private donors like the RLC Foundation, Prevent Child Abuse Utah has delivered child abuse prevention education to hundreds of thousands of parents, students, and educators in Utah’s K-12 school communities.

Utah’s Most Pervasive and Protected Problems 

One in seven Utah children will be sexually abused by the age of 18. 91% of the time, children are abused by someone they know and trust. Research shows that prevention education halves the likelihood of abuse. Prevent Child Abuse Utah’s School-Based Program works to keep Utah’s children safe and healthy in three ways: 

• Age-appropriate, classroom-based presentations by Prevent Child Abuse Utah’s Education Specialists 

• A train-the trainer certification that teaches school counselors, social workers, psychologists, and other professional personnel to become on-campus prevention specialists

• A mandated online course focused on preventing and reporting child abuse, trafficking and neglect for all adults working with youth, including educators, administrators, and staff.

Unlike other social issues like bullying and suicide, many people believe that child abuse is inevitable and the problem is unsurmountable. The RLC Foundation and Prevent Child Abuse Utah know this simply isn’t true. Child abuse is preventable! Parents, no matter the demographics or economic status, care about their children. Protecting children is still spoken as a shared value in our society. Education is the first level in prevention work.

With the generous support of the RLC Foundation, Prevent Child Abuse Utah’s prevention team travels to hundreds of schools across the state of Utah teaching students how to recognize, resist and report child abuse. The Foundation also provides the help needed to educate parents, clergy, school communities and other adults working with youth how to create guardrails in the spaces they lead. These guardrails ensure children can safely learn, worship, create, play and live, free of abuse.