Twenty years of research and action for the well-being of children

Abstract

The rates of child maltreatment and family violence are such that these problems are increasingly recognized worldwide as significant public health problems. In Canada, over the last 15 years, studies have allowed us to follow the development of indicators of child abuse and neglect. The most recent Canadian incidence study showed that 14 children in 1,000 were identified as victims following an evaluation of youth protection services in 2008; in Quebec the rate was 11 children per 1,000 during the same period. These rates do not include children considered ‘at risk’, nor victims of coercive parental conduct who are not brought to the attention of the authorities. In these cases, data from population-based surveys reveal rates 10 to 20 times higher, depending on the types of violence reported. Alarming in its scale, child maltreatment leads to many, welldocumented consequences, both physical and psychosocial. In spite of increased awareness, however, it remains difficult, even impossible, to determine its exact causes. Nowadays, theoretical models postulate that these various events have multiple, interrelated and cumulative causes. In this respect, ecological and transactional approaches suggest taking into consideration the mutual influence of a number of factors, including the characteristics of the child, the parents, the parent–child relationships, living conditions and the broader social environment. Recognition of the scope of the child maltreatment, its impacts and its etiological complexity has given rise, over the last several decades, to the adoption of a public health approach in order to grasp the problem as a whole. Public health has influenced a lot of research in the field of family violence, whether it be the definition and monitoring of the scope of the problem, the identification of its causes, the development and assessment of possible preventive actions or the implementation of preventive and curative interventions based on research results. Between 1992 and 2012, a team in Quebec made up of researchers, clinicians and stakeholders worked to implement such an approach by creating GRAVE (Groupe de recherche et d'action sur la victimisation des enfants), a research and action group on child victimization.