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A forward-looking child abuse and neglect prevention agency makes practicing what it preaches a high priority.

"We have a collaborative way of working with families and the broader community, and that is very distinctive about what we do," said Patricia Cronin, executive director of 10-year-old Family Tree, a nonprofit that educates 16,000 Marylanders a year in family welfare matters.

"We provide families with several different kinds of menus," Cronin said, listing Family Tree's offerings as including year-round, 12-week courses in child abuse and neglect prevention; a smaller, more personal set of client support groups; a round-the-clock stress hotline; children's after-school programs; and an array of home visiting programs, which cultivate behavioral change and monitor program results.

"We have been partnering with them, providing parent education classes for about four years now," Dr. Scott Krugman, Franklin Square Hospital's pediatrics department chairman, said of the group. "There are many child abuse prevention agencies in Maryland, but Family Tree uses the most up-to-date techniques and curricula to prevent child abuse."

Having successfully merged with two similar nonprofits a decade ago - a rare accomplishment in the nonprofit world and one that itself attests to Family Tree's uniqueness, Cronin says - the 50-employee, $3 million nonprofit now has offices in Baltimore City and Prince George's, Harford, Anne Arundel, and Howard Counties.

And it partners with many like-minded organizations throughout these jurisdictions to project - through in-house and volunteer support - its training as widely as possible.

"They provide our participants with parenting classes, and we have been very satisfied over the years," said Linda Harvey, director of the Park Heights Family Center. "They have been instrumental in getting our parents through difficult times."

Maryland, according to Cronin, registers 30,000 reports of child abuse or neglect a year, an incidence number that ranks 24th in the nation. The United States, she says, also fares poorly when compared to other industrialized nations.

"We think Maryland can do a lot better," Cronin said, while allowing that the state's record has lately improved, but not significantly.

Mary Francioli, Family Tree's director of development, attributed the improvement to "a lot of leadership in Maryland right now ... to really make sure that we're reaching out to families that we know are going to have difficulty."