Child Abuse Prevention Month

April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month. To help your program make the most of this opportunity, Texas CASA has created a toolkit that contains a variety of resources, templates, media and community outreach tips, and more to further your program’s message.

In addition, you can find prevention centers & services in your county on the DFPS Family Support Services website.

The Need

Check out the 2025 DFPS Data Book to find your county’s statistics. Programs can download complete data sets from fiscal year 2016-2025 on the Texas Open Data Portal.

Raising Awareness All Month Long

Child Abuse Prevention Month is one of our biggest opportunities to step up and educate our friends, families and neighbors about child abuse and neglect, and how we individually and collectively can help prevent it.

Below are some creative ways CASA programs across the state are taking their Child Abuse Prevention Month fundraising and awareness activities to the next level. Plus, below you can find ideas specific to Go Blue Day and Blue Sunday.

• Walk of knowledge | Design a walk of knowledge at your local courthouse, church, town square, etc. Post signs along a sidewalk with data and information on child abuse and neglect. Check out this walk of knowledge from CASA in the Heart of Texas. They also lined the sidewalks with pairs of shoes, each representing a child who has experienced abuse or neglect.
• Library story time | Partner with your local library to do a weekly story time reading to children in your community. Bring coloring sheets for the kids and information on CASA for the adults. Texas CASA has The CASA Effect coloring sheets you can customize in Canva.
• Movie in the Park | Host a movie in the park night in conjunction with your parks department. See if you can welcome everyone and say a few words about CASA, or have a booth with CASA materials, water, etc.
• In-person or online proclamation reading | Invite your county or city to read a proclamation for CAPM and host the event either in person or virtually for volunteers and other community members to attend. See this example from Lynn Ramsey, Mayor of Shamrock, Texas.
• Candlelight Vigil | Host a candlelight vigil at your local courthouse or other public building. Check out this social media post for their vigil from Brush Country CASA.
• Virtual ribbon campaign | Plan a virtual ribbon campaign fundraiser by selling virtual ribbons and creating an online ribbon wall. Check out CASA of Galveston County’s virtual ribbon wall.
• Pinwheel garden | Get your community involved to build a pinwheel garden. Get students to help make the pinwheels and build your garden in the front of a local business for the month of April. Check out this photo and this photo of Voz de Niños teaming up with their local university to build their garden.
• In-person or virtual 5K run | Participants pay their race fee to enter, and then run on their own during certain dates. They then send their activity log from a fitness tracking device, such as a watch or smartphone, to your CASA program. Check out this article on how to host a virtual race for ideas.
• Paint the town blue | If your town has a square of any collection of business, ask them to decorate their storefront windows or sidewalks to show awareness for CAPM. Team up with a local artist or school, or let the children you serve do some of the painting.
• Light the town blue | Sell or give away blue light bulbs to neighbors or businesses and have them light the town blue in April.
• Sign display | Place signs or other objects in the courthouse lawn or other businesses to represent the number of kids in care in your community, e.g., t-shirt shaped signs, pinwheels, shoes, etc. Check out this display from CASA of the High Plains.
• Volunteer recognition | Create a social media campaign showing your volunteers wearing blue and holding signs saying why they became a CASA volunteer. Check out this example from CASA of Hidalgo County.
• T-shirt contest | Have your staff, volunteers or community submit a t-shirt design and have other volunteers or community members vote on their favorite. Have the t-shirts made and sell them to raise money for your program. Check out these designs from Great Plains CASA, CASA of North Texas and Amarillo Area CASA.
• Fishing tournament | Make a reel difference. Check out CASA for Kids of South Central Texas’ Casting for CASA fundraising event.
• Coins for CASA | Involve your local school by having classrooms collect coins. Reward the class that raises the most money with a pizza party.
• Burger drive-thru | Sell burgers in a drive-thru fashion to your community. Work with local businesses to have ingredients donated.
• Coffee sleeves | Design coffee sleeves and partner with a local coffee shop. Ask if a portion of sales can be donated to CASA. Check out how a previous coffee sleeve campaign turned into a deeper partnership between one local coffee shop and CASA of the Coastal Bend.
• Traveling lawn decorations | “Decorate” your community. Check out these humorous examples from Great Plains CASA and CASA of Titus, Camp and Morris Counties.
• Fast food stickers | Partner with a fast food restaurant in your community to design stickers to seal their bags or tack on receipts.
• Pancake breakfast | Team up with a local restaurant to host a pancake breakfast.
• Clay shoot | Host a clay or trap shoot. Include prizes and get sponsors!
• Blue everything! | Invite local restaurants or businesses to create or sell a special blue item and donate proceeds to your program. Some ideas include donuts, drinks, muffins, jewelry, and t-shirts, but the possibilities are endless!

Media Relations

We have created media templates for Child Abuse Prevention month in English and Spanish. Simply insert the fiscal year, data, and your local program information in the highlighted fields. Templates include a press release and a sample proclamation.

DFPS Social Media Toolkit

DFPS has put together a social media toolkit with shareable .pdfs, resource links, and sample social media wording and images.

Go Blue Day

The date for Go Blue Day 2026 is Friday, April 10, 2026.

Go Blue Day is when thousands of Texans will wear blue, the official color of prevention, to show their support for ending child abuse. Wear CASA Blue on that day, and encourage your friends, family and colleagues to do the same!

Go Blue Day is a great opportunity to perform outreach in the community to raise awareness of Child Abuse Prevention Month and your program.

Ideas for engaging with the community in a virtual or physically distanced environment on Go Blue Day:

• Ask businesses to wear blue, send a photo and post it on your social media accounts, tagging the business. Be sure to ask them to like the photo and share it on their accounts. Check out this example from CASA of the High Plains.
• Light the city blue. Ask businesses to turn their lights blue during the night of Go Blue Day.
• Drop off brochures or flyers with information about your CASA program including your next info session dates.
• Team up with a local business to create a Go Blue Day item to sell or give away, e.g., collaborate with a local bakery to create Go Blue Day cookies and have proceeds donated to your program.
• Advertise apparel if your CASA program sells apparel.
• Partner with other organizations in your area and collaborate on a Go Blue Day outreach activity.

Blue Sunday

The date for Blue Sunday is Sunday, April 26, 2026.

Blue Sunday is an annual event where churches pray for the victims of child abuse and those who care for them. Originally starting with 20 churches, Blue Sunday has grown into an international effort with more than 2 million participants.

Blue Sunday offers CASA programs a great opportunity to not only spread awareness of Child Abuse Prevention Month but also share with members of the faith community how they can get involved with CASA.

Once you have identified various churches and places of worship, the next step is reaching out to them about participating in Blue Sunday. Ideally, your connection (a volunteer, board member or staff member) to the congregation would talk to the person with the clergy in charge. For additional resources to help your program connect with faith communities, check out our Clergy, CASA and Community toolkit.

One idea to engage faith members is to hand out prayer cards. Feel free to use or be inspired by the prayer cards created by Texas CASA, originally created for Stand Sunday and now customizable in Canva.

Additional ways CASA programs can engage virtually or physically distanced with local places of worship include:

• creating a Facebook event for Blue Sunday, inviting all faith communities to participate on their own,
• addressing the congregation virtually about the role of a CASA volunteer, or
• dropping off a brochure or bulletin board flyer.

Additional information and resources are available on the Blue Sunday Child Abuse Prevention Initiative website.

Zoom Background

Download the Child Abuse Prevention Month Zoom background.

Promotional Materials

Stickers & Buttons

Use the file below to create stickers and buttons to share our Less Me, More We initiative with your friends, family and community during Child Abuse Prevention Month. When printing stickers be sure to use Avery 2” Round Labels 22877.

Questions?

If you have any questions or other ideas to share about Child Abuse Prevention Month please contact Campaign Marketing & Media Manager Lindsey Lee at llee@texascasa.org.