KIDS COUNT in Delaware 2021 Fact Book on Delaware Kids and COVID-19

Wednesday, May 5, 2021

10:00 AM

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Starting in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has been making an impact on our lives. Since its arrival in Delaware, we have each learned a lot about prevention, made personal sacrifices, and adopted new behaviors in order to limit exposure and reduce community spread. Many of our societal structures are operating in a modified way: virtual and hybrid schooling, telemedicine, limited number of patrons in businesses, and non-essential personnel working from home are some of the changes to which we are now accustomed.

The pandemic has illuminated flaws in the patchwork of infrastructure supports for Delaware’s kids and their families. COVID-19 did not create these systemic issues. But the pandemic has further stressed our child-serving system and highlighted the disparate outcomes dependent on social determinants of health.COVID-19 has also caused us to collectively grapple with many hard questions: How is this history making pandemic affecting our children’s well-being? What will the lasting impacts be – physical, mental, social, and economic – of this virus?

Melissa T. Merrick, PhD, is President and CEO of Prevent Child Abuse America (PCA America), the nation’s oldest and largest nonprofit organization dedicated to the primary prevention of child abuse and neglect. She has more than 20 years of clinical, research, and leadership experience related to the etiology, course, and prevention of child abuse and neglect.

Previously, Dr. Merrick was a senior epidemiologist at the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in Atlanta. She is recognized as one of the country’s foremost experts on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs): in partnership with the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Child Abuse and Neglect, she served for 8 years as the lead scientist for the ACEs study at CDC and is the lead author of CDC’s Vital Signs: ACEs, the most nationally representative report on the topic.

​Join KIDS COUNT in Delaware on 5/5/21 as we review the newest data and explore questions of child and family well-being in the state.