Child Maltreatment Prevention Action Team

CMPAT provides resources and educational opportunities to families in Montezuma County to help every child thrive.

Strategy

CMPAT’s strategy to decrease the rate of child neglect cases in the county focuses on education around substance use and domestic violence. CMPAT works to increase community knowledge of child maltreatment prevention tactics and awareness of the community responsibility of prevention through norms changes.

Key Actions

Development and promotion of the #MontezumaCountySupportsEachOther Media Campaign on the awareness of child abuse and prevention throughout Montezuma County. Media campaign activities included:

  • Painting the large mural on the corner of Montezuma and N Market St in Cortez

  • Creation of a billboard on the busy highway 160 coming into Cortez

  • Posting an ongoing positive norming campaign on the CMPAT Facebook page

  • Distribution of a community-wide mailer to over 10,000 households in the county

  • Created a movie theater ad to raise awareness of the community responsibility to prevent maltreatment which played in the local movie theater for over 15 months.

Distribution of a survey to measure the community and individual perception of child abuse and neglect, and one’s responsibility in prevention which informed the direction and content of multiple years of prevention activities, including the positive norming media campaign

Led multiple youth groups in supporting the norms campaign on the prevention of child abuse and neglect. Youth groups painted murals, presented to local leadership, and engaged in a variety of prevention courses and activities

Facilitated ongoing community-wide child abuse prevention and mandated reporter trainings

Development and upkeep of the online, interactive community resource guide: padlet.com/CMPAT/Resources.

Data

Our Child Maltreatment Prevention Action Team (CMPAT) creates a shared vision, strategy, and implementation plan for supporting families and reducing rates of neglect in Montezuma County. The first step of the process is to update the county's data "snapshot" to get an understanding of the rates of abuse and neglect, and the state of family wellbeing. The team gathered and compiled relevant data to form this current Data Profile (2025) which will be used to help inform strategies. The next step of the process is to gather parent input about parental stress, support needed, and the use and effectiveness of resources. 

Resources