River Bridge Regional Center (RBRC) presented its Child Abuse Prevention Education Strengths and Needs Assessment in the fall in partnership with the OMNI Institute, a Denver-based social science consulting organization, and spoke to RBRC’s progress as an organization and its short- and long-term goals. This assessment, according to Development Director Mary Cloud, helps set the stage for a collective approach to embolden child abuse prevention resources.
RBRC serves Garfield, Pitkin, Eagle and Rio Blanco counties, guiding child victims and their families through an already challenging process following allegations of abuse. The team hopes to broaden their reach, specifically when it comes to prevention education and creating a wider understanding of the resources they, and others, provide.
“We wanted to educate and bring awareness to … symptoms and prevention opportunities to make sure our kids and community are safe,” Cloud told The Sopris Sun. “We started with OMNI. They led the charge with developing the assessment by reaching out to various partners to get involved … and then putting together the results and analyzing them to see what it is that our community has in place already.”
She stressed that “child abuse education [and] prevention is not a one-organization task.”
Some of the entities and individuals that partook in the assessment included local law enforcement agencies, Garfield County Public Health and Human Services, CASA of the Ninth, YouthZone, Stepping Stones, Advocate Safehouse, local educators and Garfield County Public Library District staff who work with children.
Amy Gomez, a prevention coordinator and a mental health provider at RBRC, shared that she is happy to see the word getting out.
“I’m happy that we’re getting more attention on the prevention work we’re doing. We do get a lot of recognition for the direct services we do, but I think the prevention side is really starting to grow and [have] an impact,” Gomez stated.
The assessment outlined a need for more education and resources pertaining to child exploitation on the internet, web safety for children, trauma-informed care, community-based prevention strategies and abuse within diverse communities.
“We would like to expand to the Spanish-speaking community. We hope to partner with more nonprofits that have a majority of Spanish-speaking clients [to] see how we can work with them and provide them our services,” said Cloud. “Another group we hope to reach is the LGBTQ+ community. We’d like to partner with organizations that work with that community so we can, again, strengthen awareness and information.”
According to the survey, 63% of community respondents expressed that language barriers can prevent people from taking part in child abuse prevention education and resources.
It’s worth noting that RBRC is navigating some funding changes, with 75% of its staff salaries being funded federally as per the Victims of Crime Act. Its income from these grants was cut by 28% in 2025, as compared to 2024. Despite this loss, Cloud said that the organization will not turn away any child in the community.
“Even though we have $108,000 less than what we did in 2024, we still have a community to serve. We’re not going to say no to a child in need, [or to] law enforcement or human services when they report a child in need. We’re going to continue delivering all of our services,” said Cloud. “We are just finding that we’re having to do a lot with less.”
For general information about River Bridge, visit www.riverbridgerc.org
To view its Child Abuse Prevention Education Strengths and Needs Assessment, visit www.tinyurl.com/RiverBridgeAssessment