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Background Child abuse and neglect is a public health concern around the world, with well-established impacts and costs to children, families, and society. While mandated reporters make the majority of reports, child abuse is still under-reported and many mandated reporters fail to report known and suspected cases. Objective This study was designed to evaluate the content of US state-sponsored online mandated reporter training in order to identify gaps and need for improvement in mandated reporter training. Methods A deductive qualitative content analysis of the publicly available curricula was conducted. Variables coded were identified through a literature review and consultation with experts. Results Numerous gaps were identified in the curricula including: few trainings identified reasons why reports should be made, only about one fourth included a definition, indicators, and examples of each type of maltreatment, the average number of suggestions for responding to a disclosure made by a child was 3, and few curricula addressed barriers to reporting or the impact of reporting on the reporter. Conclusions The trainings as a whole are not providing mandated reporters with comprehensive information about definitions, examples, and indicators of the major types of childhood maltreatment. In addition, the trainings contain only limited information to motivate reporters to see their role as part of a collective endeavor to protect children, and they are failing to adequately address reluctance about reporting. However, improvements are readily achievable. A partnership approach to curriculum design and delivery is recommended to develop effective training that will promote sound reporting.

Statement of Purpose No Hit Zones (NHZs) are an emergent and highly promising public health strategy designed to change community-level social norms regarding the acceptability of physical punishment of children, an important approach for child physical abuse (CPA) prevention. NHZs are a multi-tiered strategic approach designed to: (1) promote an environment of safety such that no one will be hit, or witness hitting, within an organizational or community setting, and (2) reduce acceptance and use of PP within that setting, thereby ultimately reducing the incidence of CPA. This presentation will discuss the benefits and challenges of NHZ implementation, training resources available to implement an NHZ, and preliminary results from a NHZ evaluation at Children’s Hospital of New Orleans. Methods/Approach Training resources developed and results from a short-term evaluation of the NHZ intervention will be presented. Pre- and post-assessments were administered to all medical center staff invited to participate in the study (n=507) before and after a mandatory NHZ training. Measures were included to assess staff attitudes toward physical punishment, attitudes toward medical staff intervention when parents hit children, medical center policy and access to information on discipline, frequency of witnessing a parent hitting a child on the medical center property and whether or not they had intervened. Results A pre-post analysis was completed via paired t-test, with significant results (p Conclusions The current results demonstrate promise for NHZs in reducing community-level risk for CPA. Significance and Contributions to Violence and Injury Prevention Science NHZs are an innovative approach to family violence prevention at the community level. This presentation will discuss development of and preliminary results from the intervention evaluation.