Child Protection Program Research Articles

“Adapting” a Policy Ideal

This analysis seeks to understand how and why policy ideals are translated into policies by political actors involved in decision-making at the mezzo-level through examining the policy-making process of two policies which seem to share the same basic principles. One is the Child Protection Program which was implemented as a national policy by the wartime Japanese government. The other is the Child Welfare Law enacted in the Postwar Reform Era. This paper aims to clarify the relation between these two policies.Under the influence of macro socioeconomic and political factors, political actors involved in decision-making at the mezzo-level “adapted” past policy ideals and concepts in an attempt to garner support for the policies they were trying to push. In the process, the actual contents of the “adapted” policies underwent considerable transformation. Here, “adapting” a policy ideal refers to the importing and exploitation in policy debates of similar terms which originally expressed the principles or ideals of policies from a different context. The term “adapting” reflects the deliberate nature of the actors' behavior, and enables us to understand the process of policy-making through making sense of the actors' underlying motives.In conclusion, this paper argues that the central ideal of the two child welfare-related policies mentioned above were “adapted” from a policy debated in the early 1920's for different issues, under different systems of decision-making and with different motives.

Peace-building for Children in the Midst of War

Ilene Cohn reviews the considerable effort by the international community to protect children in time of war. She argues that there continues to be a gap in child protection and service provision due to current emergency and development programming and funding methods. Cohn advocates a new approach to programming, budgeting and evaluation of child protection programmes and calls upon the international community to develop the capacity to fill the gaps in what is known about how best to protect children throughout armed conflicts and long into their aftermath.

Reframing Child Safety in Michigan: Building Collaboration among Domestic Violence, Family Preservation, and Child Protection Services

In recognition of the substantial overlap between domestic violence and child maltreatment, Michigan's domestic violence, family preservation, and child protection programs are working together to enhance the safety of children and their battered mothers. This article discusses the development of Michigan's collaborative efforts, including the identification of obstacles that had prevented cooperation in the past. This article then describes three components of Michigan's collaboration. First, the development and implementation of statewide cross-training: on domestic violence for family preservation and child protection staff, and on family preservation and child abuse and neglect for domestic violence staff. Second, providing intensive family preservation services to battered women and their children by direct referral from domestic violence service programs. Third, the development of CPS policy to support these collaborative training and program initiatives. Finally, this article concludes with some observations about statewide implementation of collaborative work.

The Problematic Use of the Concepts of Empowerment, Responsibility and Innocence in Child Protection Programs

Abstract The academic literature on child sexual abuse reveals that since the 1980's there has been a focus upon studies of prevention programmes such as the protective behaviours programmes. These programmes are aimed at children and advocate the importance of teaching them appropriate responses to threatening situations such as sexual, emotional, physical abuse and domestic violence. Sexual abuse is one among several forms of abuse that children are being schooled in self protection. Taught at primary schools the programs are presented as plays, storytelling, role playing and games which seek to emphasise the sexual abuse component of the protective behaviour. In particular they aim to inform children how to identify inappropriate sexual behaviour by adults, to recognise ‘good’ and ‘bad’ touching. They also aim to encourage children to respond to the behaviour by saying ‘no’ and finally to confide in a ‘trusted’ adult of any attempted or actual abuse.

Factors affecting foster care placement of children receiving child protective services

Research on placement predictors can provide valuable information about factors that drive the decision making of child welfare professionals. This study focused on identifying predictors of placement in a sample of 1,035 physically abusive or neglectful families reported to the public child protection program of a large mid-Atlantic city. Five of nine predictors from three domains—family demographic characteristics, maltreatment characteristics, and maternal problems—had a unique effect on placement status. Analyses revealed interactions between maternal substance abuse problems and maternal developmental limitations and domestic violence and between developmental limitations and maternal mental health problems. Recommendations for future research are discussed.

Low Socio-Economic Status Children are Disadvantaged in the Provision of School-Based Child Protection Programmes

Although child sexual abuse affects all social classes, there is evidence to show that the risk of abuse is higher in lower socio-economic status (SES) groups. Data from a research project to evaluate the school-based child protection programme taught in New Zealand show that, prior to exposure to the programme, children from the lower SES group were potentially at greater risk of sexual abuse due to their lower knowledge and skill base. After the programme, the low SES children were found to have gained less than their middle class peers and these differences persisted when children were retested 12 months later. The observed SES differences in benefits obtained from the child protection programme can be at least partially attributed to differences in the degree of parental involvement across social class. Children from low income families were the ones least likely to have parent representatives at meetings relating to the programme. Their parents were the least likely to reinforce safety concepts at home and low SES children were the ones least likely to trust their parents to provide protection. The low level of parental involvement was associated with lower levels of teacher commitment to child protection in low SES areas. The effectiveness of child protection programmes is likely to be enhanced if parents can be enticed to attend information sessions where the benefits of their involvement can be emphasized. The particular challenges remaining are how to interest the lower SES parents in education for child protection, ensure their cooperation with school-based teachings and raise the interest and commitment levels of child protection educators in low SES environments.

Developing a child protection programme for children with special educational needs

Developing a child protection programme for children with special educational needs

Protecting boys from the risk of sexual abuse

Relatively little is known about the sexual victimisation of male children. Because more girls report sexual abuse than boys, it has been widely assumed that boys are less vulnerable or that their abuse is less damaging than the abuse of girls. As a result, child protection programmes have been directed towards the protection of females. Interviews with 194 adult male survivors of sexual abuse suggest that the victimisation of boys is under‐recognised, under‐reported and that boys are not adequately protected by parents and current child protection curriculum. Subjects identified their sexual curiosity and ignorance as the primary contributors to their victimisation. Non‐incest victims also believed that the lack of physical affection from their fathers contributed to their vulnerability. Strategies to facilitate the recognition and reporting of sexual abuse by boys warrant immediate attention.

Disposition of child physical abuse reports: Review of the literature and test of a predictive model

Child protection programs have responded to the problem of insufficient staff to manage the influx of maltreatment reports through screening and triage mechanisms. Despite widespread implementation of such procedures, few studies have focused on developing empirical models that might help case-workers make these decisions. While the models that have been developed to date are superior to caseworker judgment for identifying report substantiation status, their predictive efficiency is not sufficient to warrant use. In this study, ordinal probit analysis was used to develop models to predict the disposition of physical abuse reports for 1447 families made to the public child protection program of a large eastern city using independent variables from four domains and an ordinal level dependent variable that indexed the intake caseworker's confidence that physical abuse had occurred. Analyses revealed that the best performing model involved the dichotomized dependent variable of ruled out and uncertain vs. indicated and confirmed.

Follow-up data on the effectiveness of New Zealand's national school based child protection program

In 1987, in response to concerns relating to the high incidence of (reported) child sexual abuse, the Ministry of Education and New Zealand Police jointly introduced a national school-based personal safety program. Keeping Ourselves Safe. In December 1990, 252 children were interviewed in eight primary schools, selected as representative of the ethnic, economic, and social diversity of New Zealand society (Briggs 1991). The interview schedule was designed on problem-solving lines to establish whether children could identify and respond safely to a wide range of potentially unsafe situations. One year later, 117 of the children were available for interview using the same questionnaire. Children exposed to Keeping Ourselves Safe had retained and increased their safety strategies during that time. The variables of gender, age, race and academic level did not affect improvement but the number of initial gains by children with highly committed teachers was almost double the number achieved by teachers classified as having low levels of commitment. Prior to using the program, children from low socioeconomic groups had significantly lower knowledge and skill levels than their middle-class contemporaries. Middle-class children also gained more from the program. The difference in gains achieved is explained in terms of parental participation in the school program.

Fatal Child Abuse and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS): A Critical Diagnostic Decision

We read with interest Dr Robert Reece's thorough article on "Fatal Child Abuse and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome: A Critical Diagnostic Decision," in the February issue of Pediatrics.1 Ever timely is this issue of the interplay between abuse and SIDS, as Reece and those at the Cleveland Child Protection Program have reported. A decade ago, we presented a paper entitled "SIDS—Child Abuse: Diagnostic Interface."2 The findings were based on both written surveys and follow-up telephone contacts.

Choosing between child protection programmes

AbstractIn 1985, Victorian police (Melbourne, Australia) adopted „Protective Behaviours”︁ and promoted it nationwide as a school‐based child protection programme. New Zealand police examined and rejected this „empowerment”︁ model and, with the cooperation of the Ministry of Education, created their own stage‐by‐stage school curriculum for children of 5 years upwards. Three hundred and seventy‐eight Australian and New Zealand children were interviewed before and after using the programmes, with a 12‐month interval to assess retention rates. The New Zealand method was more effective in increasing children's safety knowledge. In both countries, success related to the factors of social class, level of teacher commitment and parent participation in the programme. Descriptions of the two types of programmes are presented to help informed choice regarding child protection programmes.

Follow up Study of Children of 5‐8 years Using Child Protection Programmes in Australia and New Zealand

A previous study (Briggs, 1991) described two different types of child protection programme: the American Protective Behaviours programme promoted by some Australian and British Police and used in pre‐schools and schools and Keeping Ourselves Safe which is the national school based child protection curriculum designed and supported by New Zealand Police in partnership with the Ministry of Education. The present paper reports on a follow up study which reveals the importance of providing young children with a school based protection programme which is developmentally appropriate in terms of language and concepts.

Resistance factors in critical incident management

This paper explores resistance and contextual variables which impinge on the successful implementation, adoption and management of critical incidents. Time constraints and uncertainty are two constant and overriding forces within the critical incident framework. These implicit pressures interact within different levels of the culture of the organisation, school or community. Two distinct yet interactive levels are discussed. They are the idiographic or personal domain, and the nomothetic or social system domain. The idiographic dimension includes personality variables as well as the role of the key stakeholders in critical incident management. The nomothetic dimension involves the organisation's social system, which has process variables and linkage mechanisms which need to be understood so that successful critical incident management can be ensured.Resistance, or refusal to comply, has been a common pervading and often intangible force in schools in relation to the management of critical incidents. My perception of this opposition to the design and implementation of critical incident management plans has been the driving force for me to think about reasons why this is so, to collect research and to write this paper.On a continuum, resistance and its opposite, acceptance, represent the endpoints of a critical incident management perspective. Opposition or resistance to a new idea, in this case, critical incident management, can be counteracted by guidance, knowledge and involvement. These are the principles of two well known models of problem solving: the Discount Hierarchy used in the NSW Child Protection Program (1988) and the Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM, Loucks etal., 1975).

Children's Perceptions of Personal Safety Issues and their Vulnerability to Molestation

Interviews with children aged from 5 to 8 highlighted their vulnerability to molestation. This vulnerability is based in part on children's developmental levels. These include a limited capacity for abstract thought which renders some well intentioned attempts at child protection ineffective. Designers need to consider these developmental limitations when they develop child protection programs. Common parenting practices are also implicated in the perpetuation of children's vulnerability. These practices make it unlikely that a child would have the confidence to report adult-initiated sexual misbehaviour to a parent. Education is necessary to inform parents about ways in which they can reduce children's vulnerability by changing their own practices.

Child-Neglecting Adolescent Mothers

This exploratory study focused on filling some knowledge gaps about the relationship between adolescent motherhood and child neglect. Objectives included identifying predictors of neglect. The 102 subjects were low-income, single parents who gave birth to their first child before 18 years of age. The 22 neglectful mothers had been identified as maltreating by an urban, public child protection program before their 20th birthday. The remaining 80 mothers had never received any of the child welfare services provided by the same agency. Information was collected during in-home interviews. Logistic regression findings (a) revealed that 5 of 11 characteristics were associated with neglect independent of race; (b) identified a model that included two characteristics, educational achievement and number of children born during the teen years, and was modestly successful for predicting neglect; and (c) supported two of the three hypotheses. Discussion focuses on theory development and recommendations for future research.

Child Protection Programmes in Schools

Child Protection Programmes in Schools

What to do when faced with troubling suspicion that young patient may be victim of abuse?

RECORDS KEPT since 1979 indicate that medical personnel have reported approximately 11.2% of child abuse cases each year. That is according to the American Humane Association, Denver, Colo. Physicians in all states are required to notify their state child protection agencies if there is reasonable cause to suspect that abuse has occurred, says Howard Davidson, JD, director of the American Bar Association's National Legal Resource Center for Child Advocacy and Protection, Chicago, Ill. Telephoned reports must be made within 24 hours of the diagnosis, and a written report usually must follow within 36 hours. Some physicians who do not see many child abuse cases may lack confidence in their ability to recognize it, says Robert Reece, MD, director of the family development centers and child protection programs at Boston (Mass) City Hospital and Boston Children's Hospital. However, they are not required to prove anything, says Howard Levy, MD, chief of

South Australian Parents want Child Protection Programs to be offered in Schools and PreSchools

It is now widely realized that child sexual abuse is an all too common crime against children, resulting in long term damage to victims and heavy costs to the community. It is also realized that much abuse could have been prevented if children had been given basic information about acceptable and unacceptable touching, secrecy about touching and norms of adult‐child behaviour. Parents representing 250 families, caring for 565 children aged 3‐12 were interviewed to find out what parents tell their children to protect them from sexual molestation. Three quarters of all parents told their children nothing and most of those who thought that they had given information had only given hints. Furthermore, this “information” was passed on only after a traumatic event had already occurred. Parents revealed an inadequate knowledge of the dangers to children and a desire for school and preschool programs to remedy the deficit.

Language patterns of opponents to a child protection program.

A community effort was made to help sexually abused girls and a "pro-incest lobby" was uncovered. This report focuses on the language used to deny or obscure the occurrence of father-daughter incest. As children's rights advocates, the authors attempted to provide a lexicon, a dictionary for the clinician, so that efforts to condone incest will not be overlooked but refuted. Both in the past and the present, instances of incest have been rationalized away by health care professionals, members of the legal profession and the community at large. The incidence of incest is higher than the increasing number of actual cases reported. The vocabulary that systematically drives certain resistances and defenses to the surface, in opposition to child protection in such cases, is analyzed by the authors. The "dynamics" involved in the realization of incest as a psychologically damaging situation for the child are complex. The social influences on the individual and the married couple, that serve to make incest a closely kept secret, are examined. The authors express hope that their linguistic analysis will help to alert all persons who work in the broad field of child abuse and child protection.