About MBF
The Monique Burr Foundation for Children
A Legacy of Child Abuse Prevention & Advocacy
The Monique Burr Foundation for Children (MBF) was founded in 1997 by Jacksonville’s Edward E. Burr on the one-year anniversary of his wife Monique’s passing to honor her legacy and continue her commitment to protecting and advocating for children.
In its early years, the Monique Burr Foundation focused on fundraising and awarding grants to other nonprofit organizations, primarily to support child abuse prevention and youth-protection initiatives. As we deepened our understanding of how to make the greatest impact, our approach evolved. We shifted our focus from funding external programs to developing our own prevention education initiatives—leading to the creation of MBF Child Safety Matters®. This marked a significant step in our mission, enabling us to directly educate and empower children to stay safe.
While our strategies have adapted over the past 29 years, our mission has never wavered: to protect children by providing effective, evidence-based prevention education. Research consistently shows that child victimization can be prevented through education. That’s why we developed MBF Prevention Education Programs—to equip children and the adults in their lives with the knowledge and tools to prevent, recognize, and respond appropriately to physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, neglect, exploitation, bullying, cyberbullying, human trafficking, digital abuse, and other online dangers.
Today, MBF is recognized as a national leader in prevention education, helping to create safer communities and a brighter future for youth throughout the United States and across the world.
MBF Prevention Education Programs
The Problem
- 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 13 boys experience child sexual abuse at some point in childhood.
- 5 in 10 students experience cyberbullying.
- Nearly 60% of teens have been harassed or bullied online, and 1 in 7 children is sexually solicited online before the age of 18.
- In 90% of cases, the child knows the abuser – often a family member or trusted adult. 83% of perpetrators were parents or primary caregivers.
- 1 in 5 students (20%) in the U.S. reported being bullied at school.
- Adverse Childhood Experiences, including abuse, are linked to long-term impacts such as heart disease, depression, substance abuse, and suicide.
Why Prevention Education Matters
We know that harm rarely happens in isolation. Children who experience one form of abuse or violence are significantly more likely to experience others — a pattern known as polyvictimization. These children face compounding trauma that can affect their health, relationships, and well-being for years to come. Stopping harm early and addressing it completely is the only way to break that cycle.
The MBF Approach
That’s why our approach connects three things that research shows must work together:
- Systems that back it all up: schools and communities structured to identify patterns of victimization early and make safety a priority, not an afterthought.
- Safety education that meets kids where they are lessons designed for each age and stage of development, so children can actually understand and use what they learn.
- Adults who are trained and ready to help because children need safe grown-ups who know how to recognize multiple forms of harm, respond appropriately, and follow through.
When these three pieces are in place, the results are measurable: children build real skills, behavior changes, and rates of harm go down including for the most vulnerable children who are at greatest risk of experiencing harm again and again.
To learn more about MBF Programs, please visit www.mbfpreventioneducation.org.
Sponsors Making This Possible
Title Sponsor
Champions For Child Safety
Gold Sponsors
Silver Sponsors
Bronze Sponsors
