Child abuse: a painful reality behind closed doors

Child abuse violates the most basic rights of children and adolescents. As documented in the main article of this issue of Challenges, child abuse is a massive, daily and underreported problem that affects the population of Latin America and the Caribbean. It manifests itself in different forms, including physical and psychological aggression, rape and sexual abuse, and takes place in the home, in neighbourhoods, at school, at work and in legal and child protection institutions. Abuse tends to be transmitted from one generation to the next, and the individuals most often responsible are parents or other adult members of the household

Are Intensive Family Preservation Services Useful?: A Study in the United Kingdom

This evaluation of the first year of an Intensive Family Preservation Service in England is based on the analysis of eighty-six families: fifty-seven families who received the service and a comparison group of twenty-nine families who did not. The study considered whether the program was fulfilling its objectives of reducing the number of children and young people in the public care system; offering a safe, supportive service for children who need protection; integrating the program into family support services as a whole, and improving family functioning. The findings were complex to interpret. Child protection was improved but there was not a reduction in the number of children needing out of home care (indeed there was an increase) meaning that short term savings in costs could not be made. Nor were there lasting improvements in the children’s behavior. There were instead a number of more subtle, arguably more sensitive outcomes: parents’ capacity to tolerate their child’s behavior was greater and overall family functioning was better for most families who received the service. Also families were, on the whole, able to make better use of follow up services.

Family to Family: Child Welfare for the 21st Century

Child welfare services have undergone many revisions and transformations since their initiation. Some scholars trace the beginning of child welfare in the United States to events such as a 1655 Massachusetts conviction for maltreatment leading to the death of a 12-year-old boy (Watkins, 1990). The predominant philosophy of child welfare has shifted over time from an early emphasis on child saving, to child protection, to family preservation. Building on family preservation, one of the current transformations in child welfare that is taking place in isolated pockets to whole states, is family-centered, neighborhood-based services. One force behind implementation of this transformation is the Family to Family Initiative of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. This paper places family-centered, neighborhood-based child welfare services within the historical context of development of child welfare and within the recent move to reinvent human services (Adams & Nelson, 1995). Against this backdrop, a locality-based implementation of the Family to Family Initiative is described.

Representation and participation in child care proceedings: what about the voice of the parents?

In Ireland, the Constitution guarantees very strong rights to parents and the family, and there has been a long and unfortunate history of failures to adequately protect children at risk. As a result, there has been much discussion in recent years about the need to improve legal mechanisms designed to protect the rights of children. By comparison, little attention has been given to establishing whether the theoretically strong rights of parents translate into strongly protected rights in practice. This paper presents new empirical evidence on the manner in which child care proceedings in Ireland balance the rights and interests of children and parents, including the rates at which orders are granted, the frequency of and conditions in which legal representation is provided, and the extent to which parents are able to actively participate in proceedings. A number of systemic issues are identified that restrict the capacity of the system to emphasise parental rights and hear the voice of parents to the extent that would be expected when looking at the legal provisions in isolation.

Child care proceedings in non-specialist courts: the experience in Ireland

It is widely accepted that court proceedings concerning child protection are a particularly sensitive type of court proceedings that warrant a different approach to other types of proceedings. Consequently, the use of specialized family or children’s judges or courts is commonplace across Europe and in common law jurisdictions. By contrast, in Ireland, proceedings under the Child Care Act 1991 are heard in the general courts system by judges who mostly do not specialize in child or family law. In principle, the Act itself and the associated case law accept that the vulnerability of the parties and the sensitivity of the issues involved are such that they need to be singled out for a different approach to other court proceedings. However, it is questionable whether this aspiration has been realized in a system where child care proceedings are mostly heard in a general District Court, using the same judges and the same physical facilities used for proceedings such as minor crime and traffic offences. This article draws on the first major qualitative analysis of professional perspectives on child care proceedings in the Irish District Court. It examines evidence from judges, lawyers, social workers, and guardians ad litem and asks whether non-specialist courts are an appropriate venue for proceedings on an issue as complex and sensitive as child protection, or whether the establishment of specialist family courts with dedicated staff and facilities provides a better solution.

Los conocimientos acerca del maltrato infantil de los futuros profesionales de la educación: un estudio exploratorio

Los profesionales de la educación se encuentran, en su ejercicio profesional, en una posición privilegiada para realizar una detección precoz del maltrato infantil y para identificar posibles casos de riesgo. Sin embargo, en ocasiones, maestros y educadores en general aducen falta de conocimiento y formación para realizar dichas tareas. Es por ello que, en este trabajo deseamos insistir en la necesidad de analizar la formación de los futuros profesionales de la educación en torno al maltrato infantil, tanto en el seno de la familia como fuera de ella, y ya sea ejercido por un adulto o por otros menores. No olvidemos que la identificación temprana de comportamientos violentos y, por supuesto, la puesta en marcha de estrategias sólidas para su prevención requieren disponer de una buena capacitación. Por esta razón, hemos realizado un estudio piloto que nos permitiera conocer la formación que los estudiantes del Grado de Pedagogía tienen sobre el maltrato infantil, utilizando un cuestionario que hemos diseñado específicamente para alcanzar tal propósito. En la realización de un estudio piloto contamos con una muestra de 24 alumnos y alumnas del 4º curso del Grado de Pedagogía. Entre las conclusiones alcanzadas destacamos que, tras analizar los datos derivados del pase piloto, podemos concluir que los futuros pedagogos consideran necesario tener formación específica al respecto, una preparación que, mayoritariamente, consideran insuficiente y muy limitada para poder afrontar sus responsabilidades profesionales en el futuro.

Invisible Victims: Recorded Crime and Children in the UK

While violence against children is a common occurrence only a minority of incidents come to the attention of the authorities. Low reporting rates notwithstanding, official data such as child protection referrals and recorded crime statistics provide valuable information on the numbers of children experiencing harm which come to the attention of professionals in any given year. In the UK, there has been a strong tendency to focus on child protection statistics while children as victims of crime remain largely invisible in annual crime reports and associated compendia. This is despite the implementation of a raft of policies aimed at improving the system response to victims and witnesses of crime across the UK. This paper demonstrates the utility of a more detailed analysis of crime statistics in providing information on the patterns of crime against children and examining case outcomes. Based on data made available by the Police Service for Northern Ireland, it highlights how violent crime differentially impacts on older children and how detection rates vary depending on case characteristics. It makes an argument for developing recorded crime practice to make child victims of crime more visible and to facilitate assessment of the effectiveness of current initiatives and policy developments. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

What's in the Numbers? Child Welfare Statistics and the Children (NI) Order

This article draws attention to the importance of routinely collected administrative data as an important source for understanding the characteristics of the Northern Ireland child welfare system as it has developed since the Children (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 became its legislative base. The article argues that the availability of such data is a strength of the Northern Ireland child welfare system and urges local politicians, lobbyists, researchers, policy-makers, operational managers, practitioners and service user groups to make more use of them. The main sources of administrative data are identified. Illustration of how these can be used to understand and to ask questions about the system is provided by considering some of the trends since the Children Order was enacted. The “protection” principle of the Children Order provides the focus for the illustration. The statistical trends considered relate to child protection referrals, investigations and registrations and to children and young people looked after under a range of court orders available to ensure their protection and well-being.

Live Work: The Impact of Direct Encounters in Statutory Child and Family Social Wor

The aim of this research project was to examine the impact of direct work on practitioners in the field of statutory child protection. The author’s premise was that this work was anything but straightforward and that surprisingly, given the intense scrutiny on Children’s Services following a child death, there was little research into the day-to-day practice of front line staff. The aim was to explore whether psychoanalytic theory could be useful in understanding and making sense of the social work task. Data was collected through observation and semi-structured interviews in one Local Authority Child in Need team over a period of six months. The findings indicated that practitioners experienced direct work with some individuals and families as profoundly disturbing and that this affected them physiologically as well as psychologically. These effects persisted over time and appeared very difficult for the workers to process or articulate. This could be expressed through embodied or non-verbal communication in the interview. Practitioners appeared to be ‘inhabited’ by particular clients, suggesting phenomena such as projective identification were in operation. The intensity and persistence of the impact on the practitioners appears to be directly related to the quality, nature and intensity of the psychic defences functioning for the particular client. Significantly, the research indicated that when practitioners were dealing with the negative and disturbing projections from the (adult) clients it seemed from the data that the focus on the child would slip so that the child appeared to recede from view. Symptoms experienced by the practitioners were akin to trauma and research and theory on primary and secondary trauma were considered. Other issues raised included shame, which affects the clients, practitioners and the organisation and the meaning and implications of this are explored. Links between neuroscience and projective identification are addressed as well as the role of the organisation, particularly as a container for these toxic and disturbing encounters.

Rôle de la collaboration famille-école dans la relation entre les caractéristiques sociodémographiques des familles et les difficultés de comportement des enfants de maternelle

Résumé : Les enfants de maternelle dont la préparation scolaire est limitée risquent de présenter des difficultés comportementales nuisibles à leur adaptation ultérieure. L’implication des parents à l’école, plus précisément la collaboration famille-école (CFE), peut représenter un facteur de protection favorisant l’adaptation de l’enfant tout au long de son parcours scolaire. Les écrits scientifiques suggèrent que la CFE jouerait un rôle important dans l’explication des difficultés de comportement, surtout auprès des enfants provenant de familles défavorisées. Cette étude porte sur le rôle de la CFE dans l’explication des difficultés de comportement intériorisé et extériorisé des enfants de maternelle qui présentaient des lacunes sur le plan de leur préparation scolaire. Les analyses de régression linéaire montrent que pour l’ensemble des familles de l’échantillon (n=47), plus il y a de communication entre le parent et l’enseignant, plus il y a présence de comportements extériorisés et intériorisés. Par contre, la CFE modère la relation entre un indice d’adversité constitué du cumul de cinq facteurs de risque sociodémographiques et les difficultés de comportement intériorisé. Ainsi, chez les familles défavorisées, une communication plus fréquente est associée à moins de comportements de type intériorisé.

Maltreated children in the early years : international perspectives on the teacher’s role

Child abuse and neglect is a significant health and social problem with serious consequences for children, families and communities. This chapter provides students, early childhood teachers, and administrators with an evidence base for understanding their role in relation to child abuse and neglect. The chapter draws from international and interdisciplinary research to address four key areas of responsibility: i) recognising signs of child abuse and neglect; ii) reporting child abuse and neglect; iii) supporting children in the classroom; and iv) teaching children to protect themselves (Watts, 1997).

Critical review of Queensland's Crime and Misconduct Commission Inquiry into abuse of children in foster care : social work's contribution to reform

This paper profiles Queensland's recent Crime and Misconduct Commission Inquiry into the abuse of children in foster care. The authors welcome the outcome as an opportunity to highlight the problems encountered by child protection jurisdictions in Australia and internationally, and they applaud some of the Inquiry's findings. However, the paper argues that the path to reform is hampered by insufficient accountability by government and management, and an inadequate challenge to the ideologies underpinning contemporary child protection policy and practice. The authors conclude with a call to value and assert social work's contribution to child protection systems so as to vastly improve outcomes for children and families.

Towards beneficence for young children in research : challenges for bioethics committees

Bioethics committees are the focus of international scrutiny,particularly in relation to their application of the principle of beneficence,ensuring that risks incurred in research are outweighed by benefits to those involved directly and to the broader society. Beneficence, in turn, has become an international focus in research with young children, who hitherto had been rarely seen or heard in their own right in research.Twenty years ago, The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 raised global awareness of children’s human rights to both participation and protection, and articulation of children’s rights came to inform understandings of young children’s rights in research. In the intervening period, countries such as Australia came to favour child protection and risk minimisation in research over the notion of children’s bone fide participation in research. A key element of the protection regime was the theoretical understanding of young children as developmentally unable and, therefore, unfit to understand, consent to and fully participate as research participants. This understanding has been challenged in recent decades by new theoretical understandings of children’s competence, where children can be seen to demonstrate competence, even at an early age, in consenting to, participating in and withdrawing from research. The paper draws on these understandings to provide insights for human research gatekeepers, such as bioethics committees, to deal with the challenges of research with young children and to realize the benefits that may accrue to children in research.

Empowerment as a framework for Indigenous workforce development and organisational change

Relative powerlessness resulting from colonial dispossession and associated passive welfare policies has long been recognised as a critical factor influencing the health and wellbeing of Indigenous Australians, yet it is hard to find well-evaluated health and social interventions that take an explicit empowerment approach. This paper presents the findings of a Family Wellbeing Empowerment programme pilot delivered to Cairns Region Department of Families Indigenous youth workers and family and community workers in 2003/2004. The aim of the pilot was to build the capacity of these workers to address personal and professional issues as a basis for providing better support for their clients. The pilot demonstrated the effectiveness of the programme as a tool for worker empowerment and, to a lesser degree, organisational change.