Readiness Assessment for the Prevention of Child Maltreatment (RAP-CM)

Overview

The Readiness Assessment for the Prevention of Child Maltreatment (RAP-CM) is a method to assess how “ready” a country, province, or community is to implement evidence-based child maltreatment prevention programmes on a large scale – that is programmes which seek to prevent child maltreatment before it even occurs.

This method for assessing readiness to implement child maltreatment prevention programmes on a large scale may be of particular interest to countries just beginning to address child maltreatment. This may include countries which have, for instance, recently completely for the first time a baseline survey on child maltreatment or violence against children and which are preparing to step up activities to address the problem.

The 10-dimensional model of readiness for child maltreatment prevention on which RAP-CM is based includes, for instance, key players' attitudes towards and knowledge of child maltreatment; the availability of scientific data on child maltreatment and its prevention; willingness to take action to address the problem; and the nonmaterial (e.g. legal, policy, human, technical, and social resources) and material (e.g. infrastructural, institutional, and financial) resources available to help prevent child maltreatment.

• Identify major gaps in readiness and inform plans to address them;
• Establish a baseline measure against which progress in increasing readiness can be tracked;
• Help to allocate resources to increase readiness for child maltreatment prevention;
• Assist in matching an intervention to the existing level of readiness;
• Act as a catalyst for taking action to prevent child maltreatment; and
• Function as a teaching tool to introduce the concepts of child maltreatment prevention and child maltreatment prevention readiness to key players.

As explained in the Handbook below, there are two options when assessing child maltreatment prevention readiness using the RAP-CM method:

• A rapid assessment, using a short questionnaire administered to key informants.
• A full and detailed assessment, which requires a small research team to carry out.