Top 5 Reasons to support Relief Nursery of Central Texas
1. RNCT provides an innovative strategy to meet a critical community demand.
Texas spends $6 Billion annually to treat child abuse after it occurs, only to find the devastating cycle continuing with escalating costs. Waiting to treat child abuse until after it occurs will never allow our community to get ahead of the problem. Unlike any other program in Austin, RNCT is a single-programmatic initiative with five sub-programs working collectively to prevent child abuse and neglect before they occur by treating the root causes. Families voluntarily participate and are self-motivated to make positive changes. Other programs focus on court-mandated clients after abuse occurs.
2. RNCT yields positive long-term results.
RNCT uses evidence based interventions that have demonstrated long-term success. Though its roots stem three years in Austin, RNCT is the local replication of a nationally recognized program model with a 35-year history of preventing child abuse and neglect and improving early childhood outcomes.
3. RNCT provides a high return on investment.
Decades of research tell us that childhood abuse often leads to other costly societal problems, including drug abuse, crime, teen pregnancy, unemployment, poverty, and mental health problems. For each child that RNCT is able to keep out of the child welfare system, we save our community an estimated average of $80,000. Ensuring the safety of young children is a critical first step to developing productive future citizens.
4. RNCT program outcomes prove that it is effective in keeping children safe.
Though they enter at a much greater risk for child abuse than the general population, 100% of families that received RNCT services have not had a substantiated case of child abuse while receiving or up to six months after receiving prevention services. RNCT participants also show an increase in family functioning, social support, concrete support, and parent/child attachment. RNCT has additionally shown a 27.5% decrease in child abuse risk for parents as measured by the Child Abuse Potential Inventory.
5. The community is demanding the program
Parents in the community are recognizing the need for our unique services as evidenced by quotes such as, “My parents abused me as a child and now I am not going to do that to my children because of these classes” and “In a time where I didn’t know what to do, RNCT did and helped me survive!” RNCT parents
Community agency partners have also identified the critical need by saying “Having advocated for children in the foster care system for over 20 years, we have come to believe that comprehensive prevention programs are our best hope for stopping the cycle of child abuse and neglect. RNCT is one of the best of such programs and we wholeheartedly support it. Especially in this time of limited resources, Relief Nursery is a great investment to make in Central Texas families.” Texas CASA