Child Abuse Prevention Month is observed every April. In that context, we are especially mindful of the achievements of Strong Communities for Children, a four-year-old comprehensive initiative to prevent child abuse and neglect. Begun with generous long-term support from The Duke Endowment (so far, about $6.8 million), Strong Communities is based on a simple but profound idea: children will be safer when every child and every parent knows that whenever they have reason to celebrate, worry, or grieve, someone will notice, and someone will care. At its essence, effective child protection requires the actualization of the Golden Rule throughout the institutions of everyday life.

With the help of outreach workers in Clemson's Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life, the communities of southern Greenville County and adjacent areas of Laurens and Anderson counties have embraced this idea with impressive unity, creativity, and dedication. Almost four thousand individuals have contributed their time and talents. Hundreds of community organizations—businesses, churches and synagogues, civic organizations, fire departments, health clinics, local governments, neighborhood associations, and police and sheriff's departments—have participated.

Research is showing that such participation translates into a sense among parents that people in their community really can make a difference in protecting their children and enhancing their quality of life. In an era in which connections among people are growing ever weaker, Strong Communities is demonstrating that we can overcome this troubling trend when people recognize that the safety and well-being of their children and grandchildren are at stake. People want to live in a community in which everyone—even the most vulnerable child—is noticed and cared for. This goal is uniting people throughout the area, regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, religion, financial resources or political beliefs.

Surely the expression of this commitment is making our communities better places to live and more attractive places to invest. The world-class high-tech innovations that will be generated at Clemson's International Center for Automotive Research in Greenville and in the Clemson Research Park in Anderson County are being complemented by the equally significant high-touch innovations of Strong Communities. Strong Communities is an important element in Clemson's emphasis on Family and Community Living and our commitment to economic development in the Greenville-Anderson area.

The ties that have been formed or strengthened so far in Strong Communities form a web that is potentially strong enough to enable every young family in the area to have help easily available to them when and where they need it. Accordingly, at a luncheon for community leaders on April 3, we will launch and celebrate Strong Families, the person-to-person assistance that is being generated under the auspices of Strong Communities.

Relying primarily on volunteers, local organizations—churches, schools, businesses, neighborhood associations, and fire departments—are joining to create Family Activities Centers in existing community facilities. Some pediatric practices are changing standard well child care to facilitate parents' connections with community resources and with other parents. Property managers, real estate agents, law enforcement officers, church leaders, educators of young children, and others are helping to link parents of young children to volunteer Family Friends.

As a service in the Family Activities Centers, Clemson's Cooperative Extension Service will help develop training in babysitting for church youth groups and school service clubs, who will use those skills to offer a regular night out for parents of young children. Extension staff and local bankers will also assist community groups in making education and mentoring in financial management and career development easily available. Clemson's Spanish-language faculty and students and IFNL's partners at the Ibero-American University in the Dominican Republic are collaborating with The Golden Strip Center and Spanish-speaking community volunteers to help to make these benefits easily available to Hispanic American families.

Anderson School District 1 recently joined in a partnership with IFNL faculty that may become a national model for school-based and school-related support for the families of young children. It will include sharing of facilities, facilitation of parents' participation, collaborative recruitment of volunteers, development of leadership by young parents, and related evaluation research.

As these examples illustrate, creation of a community in which everyone—even the smallest, most vulnerable child—is noticed and cared for does not require enormous, dramatic change. It does not require huge new economic investment. It does require that we all do a little more for each other.

Clemson has pledged to set the national standard in public service for land-grant universities. This task is made easier by the civic-mindedness and good will of the communities with which we work. We are proud to be a partner with Greenville-Anderson communities that have joined in a movement to support young families in order to keep kids safe.

James F. Barker, FAIA, is president of Clemson University

Gary B. Melton, Ph.D., is director of Clemson's Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life

For further information about Strong Communities, see www.clemson.edu/strongcommunities.

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