Why Didn’t Anyone Understand? Why Didn’t Anyone Ever Stand in the Way? Detecting Child Abuse in Out-of-Home care Setting: The Role of Safeguard and Protection Systems and Social Workers

Abstract

Abstract The issue of institutional abuse (IA) in out-of-home care services is a difficult one, which we struggle to think about and which is slow to find attention and recognition: the victims are those children who, after experiencing maltreatment and abuse in the family, still suffer violence in the residential care services that should protect them. It represents the failure of the public system in protecting children, and it is often the result of institutions and professionals who allow, collude, cover, justify and minimise violence against children. Starting from a recent and paradigmatic Italian story and from the contribution of experience and thought of those who, as the first author, survived it, as well as from the analysis of the existing literature, this article examines the specific characteristics and dynamics of IA that motivate the extreme difficulty of its emergence. This article aims to improve professionals’ awareness concerning the phenomenon and their responsibilities in the prevention and early detection. For professionals and services to see institutional maltreatment implies questioning themselves, their own methodological tools and their own professional practices, as well as opening themselves to the concrete possibility of being able—at least—to make serious mistakes.