Why Healthcare and Education Professionals Underreport Suspicions of Child Abuse: A Qualitative Study

Jeanne Gubbels,Claudia E. van der van der Put,Mark Assink,Peter Prinzie

doi:10.3390/socsci10030098

Jeanne Gubbels, Claudia E. van der van der Put + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci10030098

Copy DOI

Abstract

Education and healthcare professionals are crucial in detecting and reporting child abuse and neglect. However, signs of child abuse are often undetected, and professionals tend to underreport their suspicions of abuse and neglect. This qualitative study aimed to examine experiences, attitudes, perspectives, and decision-making skills of healthcare and education professionals with regard to identifying and reporting child abuse and to gain insight into how detection and reporting can be improved. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 49 Dutch professionals working in child health care, mental health care, primary schools, and secondary schools. The I-Change model was used as a theoretical framework to organize the results. Many professionals believe they miss child abuse signs in their daily work, partially due to a lack of focus on child abuse. Further, professionals indicated having insufficient knowledge of child abuse, and lack communication skills to detect or discuss signs indicative of child abuse in conversations with parents or children. As for risk assessment, professionals barely use structured instruments even though these are regarded as very helpful in the decision-making process. Finally, professionals experience deficits in the cooperation with child welfare organizations, and in particular with Child Protective Services (CPS). Various directions for improvement were discussed to overcome barriers in child abuse detection and reporting, including developing tools for detecting and assessing the risk of child abuse and improving communication and information transfer between organizations.

Highlights

Child abuse is a major public health problem with potentially devastating and long-term effects on children (Alink et al 2012; Cicchetti 2016; Gilbert et al 2009a; Jonson-Reid et al 2012).Early detection of child abuse is essential to effectively prevent and reduce child abuse
In addition to Schols et al (2013) who identified various barriers in signaling and reporting of child abuse experienced by public child healthcare professionals and primary school teachers, we examined how professionals think that the detection and reporting of child abuse can be improved
At the end of this section we describe how professionals would improve their detection and reporting of child abuse

Summary

Introduction

Child abuse is a major public health problem with potentially devastating and long-term effects on children (Alink et al 2012; Cicchetti 2016; Gilbert et al 2009a; Jonson-Reid et al 2012).Early detection of (risks of) child abuse is essential to effectively prevent and reduce child abuse. In the Netherlands, child abuse is reported by professionals for approximately three percent of all Dutch children (Alink et al 2018), whereas self-report studies show a child abuse prevalence of 12 percent (Schellingerhout and Ramakers 2016). This difference in percentages implies that most child abuse cases in the Netherlands are not detected by professionals. It is important to gain knowledge on how detecting and reporting child abuse of professionals can be improved The aim of this qualitative study was to examine the experiences, attitudes, perspectives, and decision-making skills of

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion