Imagine you are 17 years old and in your second year as a camp counselor and afterschool group leader at a community center that means so much to you. As you sit down with one of your campers who you’ve known for almost 3 years now, she is visibly upset. After some debriefing, she eventually tells you she is getting abused at home. 17-year-old me would never have expected to have to handle a situation like this, but that was what happened one hot summer day at the YMCA. Child abuse in homes is much more common than one would think but it is also more preventable than one would think. Enforcing more home visits by the staff of the Department of Children and Families is an efficient and productive way to ensure that families that may have been flagged for potential abuse are kept up with. The legislature recently passed a bill requiring state workers to conduct in-person home visits to check in on families with open safety plans. Home visits had largely become virtual during the pandemic. These required DCF visits allow the state worker to experience and monitor the environment the child lives in, who they live with, look for physical or mental signs of abuse, and overall assess the child’s well-being and safety. As well as these at-home visits, the DCF hopes to implement safety assessments in substance abuse cases, access to fentanyl testing, and work with service providers to secure information sharing between staff and families. While it may seem imposing to do routine checks, it ensures that the designated safety plan that these parents and guardians have made is being fulfilled as promised. When these safety checks begin getting missed, or done to a minimum scale, such as online, trouble and abuse are easier to happen and then be overlooked. Claire O’Shea Although this occurrence at my community center happened before COVID-19, the children suffering post-COVID are a multitude. When the pandemic shut everything down, many regularly scheduled home visits became virtual, giving power to the parent or guardian to make a situation appear exactly how they desire it to be which can be easily falsified. The pandemic also forced these routine checks to be pushed back and delayed, again giving parents and guardians complete control. Children’s welfare was compromised as a result of the home visits not being in person. Laws are an essential way to secure a child’s safety as they provide a clear explanation of right and wrong, but alternative ways to prevent abuse begin well before the legislature. Educational programs, community training, and support groups are ways to give children and families the resources needed to report and understand the realities of abuse. Schools should be required to create mandatory educational programs to teach students from an early age about their rights, how to recognize abuse, and trusted adults they can turn to for help. Similarly, requiring training for adults such as neighbors, teachers, counselors, coaches, and other community members to be mandated reporters ensures a child’s safety outside of the house and establishes a trusted relationship between child and adult. Such training could also allow people to create neighborhood watch teams, family preservation programs, and counseling groups that foster a strong community network of support. Alternative housing solutions such as shelters or housing programs should be designated areas required in all communities as a means of a safe space for families fleeing abusive situations. Within these housing solutions can be alternative support initiatives with services and educational strategies that work with families to transition from an abusive circumstance to independent living. Reporting my conversation with that camper four years ago was one of the scariest things I have ever had to do, as I knew this could completely disrupt this child’s life and displace her from her family. However, I hoped that choosing to report guaranteed that the child would never be harmed again. Reporting something of this matter is hard and complicated, but it is crucial to establish a safe and secure environment. But this advocacy will only be effective if the other end of the system is working just as hard and upholding their promise to act when children are harmed. Claire O’Shea is a senior at Sacred Heart University, majoring in health science with a concentration in Public Health with plans to do accelerated nursing.