Dear Adult Services Families and Guardians,
Last month, I shared that early this year a team of our leaders chose to attend the NJ-ASAP Prevention Summit hosted by the NJ Department of Human Services Office of Prevention to identify additional abuse prevention strategies, including a review of a third-party abuse prevention framework and accreditation.
Since then, we studied Praesidium’s abuse prevention framework and accreditation which was established over three decades ago. This review included discussions with Praesidium officials, references from providers serving the intellectual and developmental disability community, Eden’s Program Committee, and Eden’s Board of Trustees.
Praesidium was formed to respond to sexual abuse of youth and vulnerable adults. Since that time, many organizations serving people with intellectual and developmental disabilities have leveraged the framework and accreditation to prevent incidents of abuse.
While Eden has not experienced incidents of sexual abuse, Praesidium offers a robust, systems-based approach based on best-practice standards. Their abuse prevention framework (outlined below) and accreditation standards review partner organizations’ systems and surrounding culture.
We will begin our work this summer and seek a Praesidium three-year accreditation. This work will continue over the next year.
More importantly, we will be leveraging this framework over the coming years.
Sincerely,
Michael Decker
President & CEO