PCANY Timeline and History
OUR FOUNDING
In June 1980, more than 100 representatives from child abuse task forces and coalitions, working in counties throughout New York State, met in Albany to establish a statewide advocacy organization. With support and assistance from the Family Life Development Center at Cornell University, and seed funding from the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, a steering committee elected at that meeting developed the New York State Federation on Child Abuse and Neglect.
1982 - We become the New York chapter of the National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse, a precursor to Prevent Child Abuse America.
1985 - Four years of advocacy efforts culminate in the establishment of the NYS Children and Family Trust Fund.
1989 - Establish the Prevention Information Resource Center (PIRC) and the Parent Helpline.
1993-1995 - Introduced Healthy Families America home visiting to the state.
2008 - Created the NYS Parenting Education Partnership (NYSPEP) with State agencies through collaborative work resulting from a PREVENT Child Maltreatment Institute.
2013 - Launched Enough Abuse community-based Sexual Abuse Prevention programming.
2015 - Statewide expansion of Pinwheels for Prevention - April is Child Abuse Prevention Month Initiative.
2016 - Launch of Protective Factors Initiative and Public Policy Initiatives focused on addressing the community and social issues underlying child maltreatment issues.
2018 - PCANY establishes the Home Visiting Coordination Initiative to coordinate home visiting services locally and across NYS (this link takes you to a timeline of the HVCI project itself on the HVCI website)
2019 - 2020 - PCANY embarks on the "Trauma Informed Legislature" Initiative. Policy/Advocacy staff met with 213 legislative offices to brief policy makers and their staff on ACEs and Protective Factors. These meetings resulted in robust conversations about what trauma-informed practice looks like in policies and systems, and culminated with legislation to mark ACEs Awareness Day on April 30 every year.
2021 - Advocacy from PCANY results in passage of legislation to update the NYS Mandated Reporter training to include: training on ACEs, trauma, and Protective Factors; implicit bias; and training on identifying child abuse and maltreatment in a virtual environment.
2022 - PCANY begins development of The Resilience Leadership & Learning Institute (RLLI), dedicated to strengthening concrete skills of professionals which help unlock the operationalization of authentic trauma-informed strength-based approaches. The goal is to ground professionals in how to strengthen the protective factors of the children and families they work with and contribute to organizational culture change that strengthens the protective factors of all staff.