Prevention Strategies

Ten agencies, including CDC and the World Health Organization (WHO), with a long history of mobilizing a consistent, evidence-based approach to preventing violence against children and youth, collaborated to develop INSPIRE: Seven Strategies for Ending Violence Against Children.external icon

INSPIRE is a suite of tools for anyone committed to addressing and preventing violence against children and youth. The INSPIRE suite of tools includes the technical packageexternal icon, which describes the INSPIRE strategies and interventions, a handbookexternal icon that provides details on how to implement the interventions, a set of indicators from the companion INSPIRE indicator guidance external iconto measure the effects of INSPIRE, and an adaptation guideexternal icon with tools to help policymakers and practitioners make decisions as they select, adapt and implement activities to prevent and respond to violence against children.

The INSPIRE seven strategies are listed in the table below.

INSPIRE Strategies to Prevent Violence Against Children and Youth

INSPIRE Strategies to Prevent Violence Against Children and Youth

Strategy Approach
Implementation and enforcement of laws
  • Laws banning violent punishment of children by parents, teachers, or other caregivers
  • Laws criminalizing sexual abuse and exploitation of children
  • Laws that prevent alcohol misuse
  • Laws limiting youth access to firearms and other weapons
Norms and Values
  • Changing adherence to restrictive and harmful gender and social norms
  • Community mobilization programs
  • Bystander interventions
Safe Environments
  • Reducing violence by addressing “hotspots”
  • Interrupting the spread of violence
  • Improving the built environment
Parent and caregiver support
  • Delivered through home visits
  • Delivered in groups in community settings
  • Delivered through comprehensive programs
Income and economic strengthening
  • Cash transfers
  • Group saving and loans combined with gender equity training
  • Microfinance combined with gender norm training
Response and support services
  • Counseling and therapeutic approaches
  • Screening combined with interventions
  • Treatment programs for juvenile offenders in the criminal justice system
  • Foster care interventions involving social welfare services
Education and life skills
  • Increase enrolment in pre-school, primary, and secondary schools
  • Establish a safe and enabling school environment
  • Improve children’s knowledge about sexual abuse and how to protect themselves against it
  • Life and social skills training
  • Adolescent intimate partner violence prevention programs

See Violence Against Children and Youth Surveys Resources for publications about strategies to prevent child abuse and neglect.

Page last reviewed: October 15, 2021