Prevention of Poly-victimization: Comprehensive and Connected Approaches-Summary of Key Points

Exposure to many different types of trauma across various settings in a child’s life—a phenomenon known as poly-victimization--highlights both the critical need for prevention strategies and the complexity of what such efforts will need to look like. Poly-victimization is an important new concept not only for child abuse intervention but also for abuse prevention. It is defined as experiencing several different types of victimization regardless of the duration or frequency of each. 1 Poly-victims have many more mental health symptoms than other victimized children and often it is the poly-victimization, rather than any one individual type of trauma, that gives the most clinically relevant information about the client’s current psychological well-being. 2 Children’s Advocacy Center (CAC) professionals are well positioned to take a leading role in preventing poly-victimization given their strong collaborations across many settings (schools, families, communities and youth development organizations) and their ability to see the intersections among children’s victimization experiences. The purpose of this paper is to describe a framework and example strategies for poly-victimization prevention to encourage CACs and other mental health professionals to see their role in prevention efforts.