PERSPECTIVE article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Health Education and Promotion
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1656760
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvancing Community Health: Integrating Love, Solidarity, and ResilienceView all articles
The Role of Positive Spirituality in Preventing Child Maltreatment and Promoting Resilience: A Perspective on Policy and Practice
Provisionally accepted
Sabine Van Tuyll Van Serooskerken Rakotomalala1*
Katy Anis2Susan HIllis3Sydney Tucker4Xiaoan Li2
Marijn Stok5- 1Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands
- 2Fetzer Institute, Kalamazoo, United States
- 3University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
- 4University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, United States
- 5Universiteit Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands
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Child maltreatment remains a pervasive global issue with profound impacts on health, development, and societal well-being. While evidence-based strategies for violence prevention have expanded, the role of spirituality as a protective and rehabilitative factor remains underexplored in mainstream policy and practice. This perspective article examines how nurturing spiritual values across the life course-such as empathy, emotional regulation, and ethical decision-making-can contribute to violence prevention and resilience building. Drawing on recent empirical findings and global policy examples, the paper argues for the integration of positive spirituality into child protection and faith-based initiatives across home, school, and community settings. The article outlines actionable strategies for practitioners and policymakers, highlights culturally responsive measurement tools, and calls for strengthened collaboration between child protection and faith-based sectors. By advancing a holistic and values-based approach to caregiving, this perspective contributes to ongoing efforts to disrupt intergenerational cycles of violence and promote children's well-being in low-, middle-, and high-income countries worldwide.
Keywords: Positive spirituality, violence prevention, resilience, Faith-based approaches, child maltreament
Received: 30 Jun 2025; Accepted: 25 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Van Tuyll Van Serooskerken Rakotomalala, Anis, HIllis, Tucker, Li and Stok. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Sabine Van Tuyll Van Serooskerken Rakotomalala, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands
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