David Chadwick was “an international pioneer in identifying, treating and preventing child abuse and a recognized expert in the field who started a movement” which included a call to end child abuse. Led by Dr. Chadwick, San Diego’s Children’s Hospital and Health Center – San Diego (CHHC) created the National Call to Action: A Movement to End Child Abuse and Neglect (NCTA). This initiative organized a coalition of more than 30 national organizations, and 3,000 child abuse professionals, community leaders, and survivors of child abuse with the goal of significantly reducing child abuse in the United States. This would be accomplished, in part, by identifying political champions, the use of science to evaluate practice and policy, and the reallocation of resources to proven prevention initiatives.
Dr. Chadwick and the NCTA boldly asserted we could end child abuse within a century but to do so would:
Require keepers of a plan who will devote many decades of their lives to the effort. The keepers will keep the message alive. It will take sweat and tears. These keepers must recruit successors with similar dedication. Who, among you, are the keepers? Who will be willing to step forward and work tirelessly to keep the message alive?
Others agreed with Chadwick’s lofty vision. For instance, Anne Cohn Donnelly saw the potential of Chadwick’s call to action but warned it would mean a commitment exceeding a lifetime. According to Donnelly, ending child abuse will require “adopting a far longer view than we have historically held, such as planning out our efforts over decades, not years, and likewise measuring our success over decades, not years. This new approach will require flexibility and a great deal of patience. But in my own view, it is possible. When Donnelly writes it is “possible” to end child abuse she concedes this may not literally be achievable “but rather that we do have it within us to bring about very significant reductions in child maltreatment over the long haul.
Using Dr. Chadwick’s “National Call to Action” as a foundation, Victor Vieth (hereinafter identified as the first author) wrote a scholarly paper called “Unto the Third Generation: A Call to End Child Abuse in the United States within 120 Years.” The article drew on nearly 20 (now 37) years of experience collaborating with a wide range of professionals dedicated to fighting child maltreatment, including social workers, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, pediatricians, nurses, mental health professionals, clergy, and others. The article was originally written in 2005 and a revised and expanded version was published a year later. The National Child Protection Training Center mailed the revised article to thousands of child protection professionals throughout the United States and the first author presented the plan in keynote addresses at national and state conferences over a period of several years.
As reflected in the title, Unto the Third Generation proposed a plan of action that would unfold over the course of a century. Specifically, the plan involved a series of concrete steps to accomplish over a period of three generations—with each generation consisting of 40-year periods. The paper set forth reforms to be accomplished in the first 40-year generation and then said succeeding generations would have to develop their own 40-year plans to build on these successes.
At the time of its publication, David Chadwick himself recognized the potential of Unto the Third Generation, writing for “the first time in history, we are presented with a blueprint for accomplishing the goal of ending child abuse and are given an estimate of the time required. Chadwick not only called the proposed reforms “very substantial” but said they “will dwarf present efforts, and require a societal commitment greater than the war on cancer and comparable in cost to the exploration of space.
It has been nearly 20 years since the publication of Unto the Third Generation—approximately half-way through the first of three 40-year plans. In this paper, we review the recommendations of Unto the Third Generation, detail the significant reforms the article inspired, and also discuss where the article fell short and needs revision. Most importantly, this article discusses whether or not Unto the Third Generation has contributed to a reduction of child abuse in the United States or has at least set a foundation which can achieve the ultimate goal.