The mission of NCPCA is to prevent child abuse and neglect through education, child advocacy, collaboration and direct service.  

Our goal is to help ensure that the health, shelter, social, emotional and intellectual needs of Newaygo County’s children are met. 
Newaygo County Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect was established in 1985 under the direction of the Michigan Children’s Trust Fund.  Over the years, programs and services have been based on needs within the county, gaps in services of other agencies and collaborative endeavors.  
 

Our programs and services are created from evidence based need and evaluated via outcome based data. They are as follows:

The Period of Purple Crying. According to the Michigan Children’s Trust Fund (under the Department of Human Services) there is an average of 342 cases of suspected abuse and neglect each day in Michigan.  Last year, 17,500 cases were confirmed involving 29,400 victims.

Summer Programs include Summer Magic for youth 5-8, “Keenagers” for youth 9-12 and Teen Challenges for youth 13-18.  These programs reach an average of 450-500 youth each summer in an eight-week day camp type setting. 

Mandated Reporting:  Lectures are given each semester as part of an evidence based college curriculum to Child Care classes and Law Enforcement students. 

​Safe Sleep: PCA provides Safe Sleep education and Sleep Sacks and portable cribs to parents of newborns who are in need of these resources. Reducing infant deaths due to unsafe sleep is a critical initiative in Michigan.

 

​​Summer lunch program:  With the help of the Michigan Department of Education, USDA, United Way and  Newaygo Middle School we have fed over 4500 lunches each summer to children in our summer programs at White Cloud, Fremont, and Newaygo, for the past seven years.  An average of 5,500 nutritious snacks are also fed each season.  

Safe Kids:  PCA also spearheads and promotes various Newaygo County activities.  These include car seat safety checks, information about poisons, bike safety, fire safety, water safety, personal safety issues (including internet) and much more.  

Safe/unsafe touch: Evidence from National Child Abuse Prevention shows statistically that one in six boys and one in three girls will be sexually abused before the age of 18.  To address that evidence based information, PCA has been presenting in our school system for the past 20 years.