Education and empowerment would be great, but why should cops be doing it? If DARE has taught us anything, it's that cops are really bad at education. Also it's a fairly privileged point of view that assumes any particular child would want to talk to police about anything. This seems more like a job for teachers and child advocates.

That is, if they can get past the PC "parents first and foremost" BS. First and foremost is stepparents and mom's boyfriends. Actual parents are a distant second, and even then is often a case of "divorced dad lost all custody rights so resorted to kidnapping in order to see children". Concentrating on the wrong thing is just as bad for advocates as it is for police.

You mention children fearing the foster system. I don't think awful foster stories are being traded at kindergarten recess, but it's true that foster care should only be contemplated in the most extreme circumstances. If child advocates are advocating for just turning up the knob on enforcement, and destroying families for such flimsy causes as corporal punishment or parental marijuana enjoyment, they're abandoning that requirement of extremity. In that case, I wonder for whom they're actually advocating, because it sure as hell ain't the children.