On Saturday, April 30, 2022, Prevent Child Abuse Arizona raised awareness for Child Abuse Prevention month with a Pinwheel Party in Prescott Valley (home to our headquarters). This free event was hosted by Yavapai Communities for Kids, a Child Abuse Prevention Council made up of dedicated volunteers and partner agencies.
The event’s hallmark activity is the community planting of a ‘garden’ of 3,000 blue pinwheels. The blue pinwheel is the national symbol for safe, healthy, happy childhoods, and the number of pinwheels symbolized the approximately 3,000 children under the age of six in Prescott Valley.
This year, the event focused on the Strengthening Families TM Protective Factors Framework. Twenty-two local family resource providers joined in the festivities, each sharing their services and how they align with the protective factors. Families received a Protective Factors Passport, which they used to navigate resource booths, and received a stamp for each protective factor. Through this passport, Yavapai Communities for Kids educated families on local resources by creating a handbook for them to understand and contact those agencies. Those who completed their passport were eligible for a raffle prize.
The event had seven raffle prizes total – each themed around one of the protective factors so that raffle winners had tangible opportunities to build their protective factors at home (i.e. a $100 gift card to a local restaurant with an encouragement to invite friends out to dinner and build social connections).
“This is the first time I’ve ever attended this event and I thought it was remarkable. I enjoyed interacting with the parents as well as the children. ” says a family resource agency who participated in the event.
The Prescott Valley Pinwheel Party is possible thanks to funding from the Arizona Department of Child Safety Office of Prevention.