• NEW! ABC is conducting a survey of Church of the Brethren congregations, districts, camps, and agencies & programs to learn about their policies and practices related to child protection and child abuse prevention. For more information about Child Protection, click here.
  
  
• ABC seeks submissions for its next Health Promotion Sunday emphasis, which will focus on the theme of "Being Family: Growing in God's Love." For more information about this theme and submitting a resource, click here.
  
  
• Resources for National Children's Sabbath to be held October 19-20, 2007, are available here to help individuals and congregations raise awareness to the plight of children within the United States.
  
  
• A traumatic event such as the recent shooting rampage at Virginia Tech leaves us with many questions and causes us to experience a wide variety of emotions. Click here to read a response for families to the Virginia Tech tragedy.
  
  
• Caring Ministries Assembly, ABC's upcoming conference will focus on "Being Family: Reality & Renewal." The conference will be held September 6-8, 2007, at the Lititz (Pa.) Church of the Brethren. The conference begins with an openning worship Thursday and ends Saturday night. CEUs will be offered at the conference.
  
  
• The Advocacy portion of ABC's work contains issues devoted to the challenges that families face today.
  
  
• Caregiving, ABC's quarterly publication. The first issue of 2007 focuses on "Creating Healthy Families." Each issue has a family life department page with recent articles about talking with children when crisis happens, helping volunteers respond to children during difficult times, making Sunday school with high-needs children a time of learning for everyone and becoming part of the "sandwich" generation by providing care to kids and parents.
  
  
• Christian Education materials created by Brethren Press offers several Family Life materials. ABC encourages readers to visit Brethren Press for these resources.
  
  
• ABC's Health Promotion Sunday materials all relate to Family Life issues. Themes such as "Celebrating Families," "Forgiveness and Healing," "Aging is a Journey" and "Offering Hope: The Church's Role with Mental Illness" offer theological statements, study guides, devotions, worship resources and more.
  
  

Websites Focus on Family Life Ministry
Below are many links to resources around the issue of Family Life.

www.kidshealth.org
Information on a wide-variety of topics of interest for parents, kids, and teens. The site contains hundreds of printable articles about positive parenting, healthy and developmental information, feelings and emotions, recipes and nurtition, relationships, safety, etc. En Espanol.

www.kidspeace.org
Downloadable brochures on parenting topics along with links to other resources including Points of Peace which has articles on how to help children cope with current events, war, bullying, grief, and other challenges they face growing up today.

www.healingmagazine.org
Articles and resources on parenting, education, and coping and mental health.

www.theright2besafe.org
Site dedicated to the safety of children, teens and women contains information on the prevention of sexual abuse and intimate partner abuse, along with reources for healthy families and links to other websites with similar themes.

www.healing4women.com
Information on preventing, healing and recovery from childhood sexual abuse. Many printable articles on the topic of child safety, along with links to other websites on the topic of safety and healing.

www.preventchildabuse.org
Parenting tips and children's activities, including "Spidey's Tips on Conflict Resolution," with a focus on safety.

www.aap.org
Site of the American Academy of Pediatrics; contains information on building resilience and reducing stress, parenting corner, children's health and development topics, internet safety and more. Some topics in Spanish.

www.healthyfamiliesamerica.org
Parent Links to articles and websites that offer parenting information and support.

www.thehappiestbaby.com
Pediatrician Harvey Karp's website has summaries of his books and DVDs that explain techniques to calm babies and help toddlers decrease tamtrums in an effort to raise happier children and decrease the risk of child abuse.