SCAN of Northern Virginia

SCAN of Northern Virginia was founded in 1988 by a group of citizens who were concerned about child abuse and neglect and their tragic implications for children, families, and communities. SCAN’s vision is that every child in Northern Virginia will grow up in a safe, stable, nurturing family, with the supports the child needs to contribute to stronger communities today and as an adult tomorrow. SCAN’s mission is to promote the well-being of children, improve parent-child relations, and prevent child abuse and neglect by: EDUCATING the community about the scope, nature, and consequences of child abuse and neglect and the importance of positive, nurturing parenting; PROVIDING direct parent education to parents and caregivers to expand their parenting knowledge and skills; and ADVOCATING for children in the community and the courts. Over the past 30 years, SCAN has grown from an all-volunteer entity to a well- respected regional organization with ten full-time and five part-time staff. SCAN is the only Northern Virginia organization whose sole focus is on education and advocacy efforts that prevent child abuse and neglect. SCAN does not duplicate existing services in each jurisdiction but seeks to engage child welfare and school professionals in regional public education efforts and to provide services that address gaps in parent education and victim advocacy for children.

To achieve its mission, SCAN operates three core programs:

(1) The Alexandria/Arlington CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) Program which recruits, screens, trains and supervises citizen-volunteers who advocate for the best interests of abused and neglected children in the Alexandria and Arlington court systems; CASAs give each child referred to the program an individual voice in order to assist them in securing safe, permanent homes, and promote their future well-being; and

(2) The Parent Education Program which helps parents provide healthy, nurturing homes for their children through a continuum of evidence-based strategies that are designed to increase parenting knowledge and skills, while developing protective factors and resilience; and

(3) The Public Education Program which works to educate the public about positive parenting, preventing child abuse, and strengthening families in Northern Virginia through targeted campaigns for National Child Abuse Prevention Month, a region-wide coalition of prevention professionals (the Allies in Prevention Coalition), multi-channel media outreach including SCAN’s Connections Blog and Podcasts for Parents, and grassroots community outreach/organizing efforts. SCAN further supports service providers and volunteers by offering fee-for-service workshops, including Stewards of Children, a nationally recognized child sexual abuse prevention training. SCAN has also distributed publicly over 13,000 educational materials including 2,400+ fact sheets on a variety of parenting topics which were downloaded from SCAN’s online Parent Resource Center.