Factors Of Child Maltreatment Research Articles

Changed for the Better: The Modifiable Maltreatment Factors Framework

Rates of child maltreatment in the U.S. have been relatively stagnant since the 1990s. This lack of progress suggests that prevention efforts, which have primarily focused on individual behaviors, have been unsuccessful. Building on existing research, this conceptual paper identifies the need to refocus prevention efforts on changeable and causal risk factors. The Modifiable Maltreatment Factors (MMF), a new framework to classify risk factors for maltreatment, is introduced. Use of the MMF in social work education and child protective services work could increase the understanding of macro factors in child maltreatment and the possibilities of policy change and community organizing in maltreatment prevention.

Characteristics of Pregnant Women and New Mothers Identified as Being At-Risk for Child Maltreatment in Early Pregnancy

Pregnant women and new mothers who have risk factors of child maltreatment are “at high risk for future child maltreatment.” Early detection of them is crucial to prevent it. This community-based, retrospective, cross-sectional, observational study aimed to identify the characteristics of pregnant women, and those in their postpartum period, identified as at-risk cases for child maltreatment. We used data from the municipal pregnancy registration system in City A and analyzed 206 cases identified as “at-risk for child maltreatment” from 1 April 2017 to 31 March 2018. They were categorized into two groups: a pregnancy group (131 cases, 63.6%) and a postpartum group (75 cases, 36.4%). Logistic regression analysis revealed that women who reported having poor relationships with their parents and participated in the interview in their early stages of their pregnancy were less likely to be registered as at-risk cases for child maltreatment after delivery. The results suggest that public health nurses (PHNs) can conduct interviews with pregnant women during the early stages of pregnancy to prevent child maltreatment in community settings. Additionally, to ensure safe delivery and childrearing environments, PHNs need to assess the family support capacity of each registered case and provide assistance to those without parental support.

The ‘toxic trio’ (domestic violence, substance misuse and mental ill-health): How good is the evidence base?

• Risk of maltreatment from combined toxic trio factors a dominant concept in UK child protection. • Systematic review found 20 papers. • Evidence base lacks definition of key measures, intersectionality analysis or theoretical basis. • Other key risk factors, especially family socio-economic circumstances, excluded. • Need to rebuild the evidence base and rethink the focus of policy and practice. The term ‘toxic trio’ was coined to describe the risk of child abuse and neglect stemming from a combination of domestic violence, parental mental health issues and/or learning disability, and parental alcohol and/or drug misuse (Brandon, 2009). Although concerns about the language have been raised in some quarters, it has become a dominant reference point in children’s social care in England and, to an extent, internationally over the past two decades. It has become embedded in the family justice system, child protection assessment processes and national data collection. There is evidence that each factor in isolation can lead to worse child outcomes, although this is of mixed quality and far from comprehensive. This article reports the results of a systematic review of evidence relevant to the relationship between the ‘toxic trio’ factors in combination and child maltreatment, identifying 20 papers. Despite the term’s currency, we found little quality evidence of the incidence of the ‘trio’ factors in child maltreatment, little consideration of intersectionality and almost no theoretical examination of the supposed relationships. Such studies as have been conducted have too rarely taken into account, or controlled for, contextual factors, such as the socioeconomic circumstances or the ethnicity of the families, or children’s ages. The discrepancy between the priority given to the ‘toxic trio’ and the paucity of the evidence-base makes a case for a shift away from over-simplified attributions of parental risk in policy and practice, and towards greater attention being given to other significant factors for child protection.

Study protocol: randomized controlled trial of manualized components in home visitation to reduce mothers\u2019 risk for child maltreatment

BackgroundThis study tests whether home visitation to prevent child maltreatment can be improved by adding manualized program components, targeting four key risk factors for child maltreatment: low parental self-efficacy, high levels of perceived stress, parental anger, and post-traumatic stress symptoms. Home visitation is widely implemented, but effects on child maltreatment risk tend to be modest at best. Home visitation tends to be rather flexible (i.e., professionals decide how to support each family). We will test whether adding manualized program components increases program effectiveness, by ensuring that key risk factors are addressed, while maintaining flexibility. In addition, we will test whether any component effects on reduced child maltreatment risk can be explained (i.e., is mediated) by ameliorated risk factors. Lastly, we will test whether the components are more effective for some mothers (e.g., those at highest child maltreatment risk) than for others.MethodsWe will conduct a randomized controlled trial among 398 mothers enrolled in a Dutch home visiting program targeting families at risk for child maltreatment. Mothers in the experimental group will receive the manualized components in two consecutive home visits, while mothers in the control group will receive regular home visits (care as usual). Mothers will fill out questionnaires at four time points: before and after each of the two home visits. Outcome variables include the four targeted risk factors parental self-efficacy, perceived stress, parental anger, and (recognition of) post-traumatic stress symptoms, as well as parenting practices (e.g., rejection and affection), and risk for child maltreatment.DiscussionThis study aims to determine whether adding manualized program components to a flexible home visiting program increases program effectiveness on risk for child maltreatment. In addition, our test of whether the effects of the components on risk for child maltreatment is explained (i.e., mediated) by amelioration of the targeted risk factors, may contribute to our understanding of the role of these risk factors in child maltreatment. Our tests of which mothers benefit most from adding the components may help move the field towards evidence-based personalized family support.Trial registrationThis trial has been retrospectively registered in the Netherlands Trial Register (NL8005).

Consideration of Risk and Protective Factors for Families at Risk for Child Maltreatment: An Intervention Approach

Child maltreatment is associated with a complex interplay of risk and protective factors. Intervention service decisions for child maltreatment need an empirically-supported approach integrating targeted risk and protective factors. A literature review led to the proposed approach to address the interplay between risk (intimate partner violence; IPV and depression) and protective factors (social support and family resources) to help guide decision-making in home-based prevention services for vulnerable families. This approach suggests that social support and family resources are two pivotal protective factors in buffering against child maltreatment potential, while addressing core risk factors. This approach is consistent with research suggesting that home-based parenting programs should target central risk and protective factors in child maltreatment. Application of this approach can guide training of providers delivering home-based services and support decision-making. Future research is warranted to test this approach in empirically-supported interventions.

The assessment of awareness of child abuse among certain social groups

Child abuse is an act of doing something or failing to do something that result in harm to a child or puts a child at risk of harm. Although the occurrence of child abuse in our society is a serious problem, the statistics often remain unreliable. The purpose of our research was an assessment of the knowledge, attitudes and experiences among physicians, medical students and teachers of reporting child abuse and neglect. The questionnaire containing questions about the demographic data of our respondents and questions regarding the analysed subject was created. The resultswerestatisticallyanalyzed using the Chi-square Test. Theinvestigatedgroup consisted of139 teachers, 131 medical studentsand53 physicians. Amongthephysicians, specialists with more than 10 yr of experience constituted 83% with a predomination of pediatricians. Among the teachers, those with more than 10 yr of experience constituted 67%. Medical journals and professional trainings were the main source of knowledge for the physicians, while television and radio were the source of knowledge for teachers significantly more often than with others groups. The majority of respondents encountered cases of child abuse (physicians 74%, students 29%, and teachers 58%). In spite of their declared knowledge about child abuse the majority of physicians and medical students claim that low social status and uneducated families are the risk factors of child maltreatment, while the majority of teachers are aware there is no difference ( P< 0.000001). The majority of respondents encountered cases of child abuse but their knowledge of child maltreatment still remains insufficient. It is considered reasonable to extend the range of obligatory professional trainings.

Culture and context in understanding child maltreatment: Contributions of intersectionality and neighborhood-based research

In the early 1990s, the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect commissioned a series of reviews that appeared as the edited volume, Protecting Children from Abuse and Neglect (Melton & Barry, 1994). Using the 1994 review “Sociocultural Factors in Child Maltreatment” (Korbin, 1994) as a background, this article reconsiders culture and context in child maltreatment work. Since 1994, conditions promoting research and practice attention in this area include immigration-driven global increases in diverse, multicultural societies where different beliefs and practices meet (and clash); expanding purview of the human rights discourse to children; and the disproportionate and disparate representation of cultural, ethnic, and racial groups in child-welfare systems. Although research on child maltreatment has advanced in many ways over 20 years, the complexity of child maltreatment leaves many critical questions demanding further attention, culture and context among them. To help address these questions, we propose two approaches for future maltreatment research: intersectionality – the simultaneous examination of multiple identities (such as gender, race, and socioeconomic status) – as a framework for understanding the complexity of cultural factors; and neighborhood-based research as a means for understanding the context of child maltreatment from the perspective of an ecological framework.

The continuing role of material factors in child maltreatment and placement

This article constitutes a 20-year update to a previous publication (Pelton, 1994), which showed that there is overwhelming evidence that poverty and low income are strongly related to child abuse and neglect. Subsequent evidence shows that the relationship continues to be strong. In addition, there is further evidence since the 1994 publication that this relation is not substantially due to class bias. Yet it is suggested that class bias does exist within the system. There is also further evidence that decreases in child maltreatment follow increases in material supports, and that job loss bears a complex relationship to child maltreatment. Findings pertaining to racial bias within the child welfare system continue to be mixed, but leave no doubt that racial disproportionalities within the system are overwhelmingly related to racial disproportionalities in the poverty population. There is continuing evidence that children placed in foster care are predominantly from impoverished families, and that changes in the level of material supports are related to risk of placement. It is suggested that the fact that there are nearly one million children in out-of-home placement (foster care and child-welfare involved adoption, combined) is indicative of the continuing dysfunction of the child welfare system, and that the differential response paradigm has not altered this dysfunction. A proposal for a fundamental restructuring of the child welfare system is recommended and restated here. Prospects for such change are briefly discussed. Also, to reduce poverty, a previously proposed universal social dividend and taxation system is briefly discussed and recommended.

An Examination of a Case Study with a Military Family and its Involvement with Child Protective Services

This theoretical article examines a case study of a military family and the family's involvement with Child Protective Services. The study initially gives a general overview of child maltreatment including the definition of child maltreatment. The article then highlights the risk factors of child maltreatment in military families. Resiliency theory identifies the strengths that mitigate the risk factors. The article concludes by discussing the social work implications of child abuse investigations involving the military and public child welfare agencies.

Unacceptable risk factors in child maltreatment: Formulations from caseworkers.

Approximately one million children are victims of maltreatment are assessed and placed in the child welfare system. The purpose of the current study was to identify caseworker perceptions of (a) reasons for youth removal from a home environment and (b) the parameters of intolerable problem categories that prompt such decisions. Four categories of maltreatment were generated to account for over 70% of the caseworkers' 249 reasons identified for youth removal using structured interviews. Within each category, perceptions of risk factors identified as intolerable for allowing youth to remain in the home were identified for each of the categories. Results may help providers to target the areas in which future program development and treatment delivery efforts should be directed. The Department of Social Services division of Child Protective Services (CPS) serves those individuals who are in need of protection from potentially abusive settings. More than three million referrals are made to child protective services throughout the United States for child abuse and neglect each year (Children's Bureau Administration on Children, Youth and Families, 2002). Out of these referrals, roughly one million children have been as the victims of substantiated abuse and neglect, with reports of maltreatment ranging from neglect to physical and sexual abuse. Caseworkers are mandated, by law, to protect children from abuse and neglect from any individual who is responsible for the child's welfare, including biological parents, foster parents, grand parents or any other individual who takes responsibility. In providing protection, Child Protective and Preventive Services have two main functions: (a) protection of a child and his/her best interests and (b) family preservation. Of the three million child maltreatment cases reported each year, an estimated 55% receive services to prevent abuse and neglect, with one-fifth of these children placed in foster-care or group homes and institutions (Children's Bureau Administration on Children, Youth and Families, 2002). The length of time a child can spend in foster care is alarming, however, and raises issues about what procedure or decision-making process caseworkers adhere to in determining whether or not a child should be returned to his/her home. Some youth spend over two years in out-of-home placement (Ansay & Perkins, 2001). How a caseworker decides when a child's removal from the home is appropriate and in the best interest of the child should be examined in order to better serve maltreated children. The decision-making process for frontline CPS workers is not an easy one. In an analysis of the decision-making process in which social workers undertake, Proctor (2002) noted that social workers are considered experts in their field and are, thus, responsible for making sound practical decisions that rely heavily on their knowledge. However, these decisions are compromised by a variety of factors, ranging from time constraints to lack of available information on which to make these decisions. Child protective professionals faced with growing criticism about the decision-making procedures utilized when a child has been placed in an unfit home or stays in the system too long have been forced to examine their practices. Several models have been implemented in order to reduce the error rate among CPS workers and to make the decision-making process less painstaking. The CPS worker must use judgment to determine what is in the child's best interest as well as how to maintain the ethical standards set forth by the agency. The rate of error may be high for CPS workers if they fail to adhere to a decision-making

Cultural factors in child maltreatment and domestic violence in Korea

In Korean culture, children are taught to be obedient and to live up to adults' expectations, quietly carrying out their important duties like schoolwork. In such an adult-centered culture that has largely ignored children's opinions and perceptions, corporeal punishment has been accepted as a disciplinary action often employed by parents and teachers. Until recently, little public attention has been paid to children at risk of being abused in the name of disciplining. In recent years, child maltreatment emerged as a social problem in Korean society as the country accelerated its industrialization and societal structures and the family system have undergone many changes. Media coverage of child abuse incidents widely sensitized the public to abused children's plight. With this media coverage and the help of various civic and non-profit organizations' child welfare advocacy efforts, a national level public policy for preventing child abuse is near completion.

Neighborhoods and child maltreatment: a multi-level study

Objective: To better understand how neighborhood and individual factors are related to child maltreatment. Method: Using an ecological framework, a multi-level model (Hierarchical Linear Modeling) was used to analyze neighborhood structural conditions and individual risk factors for child abuse and neglect. Parents ( n = 400) of children under the age of 18 were systematically selected from 20 randomly selected census-defined block groups with different risk profiles for child maltreatment report rates. Parents were administered the Neighborhood Environment for Children Rating Scales, the Child Abuse Potential Inventory, the Zimet measure of social support, and the Conflict Tactics Scales as a measure of childhood experience with violence. Results: Neighborhood factors of impoverishment and child care burden significantly affect child abuse potential after controlling for individual risk factors. However, neighborhood effects are weaker than they appear to be in aggregate studies of official child maltreatment reports. Variation in child abuse potential within neighborhoods is greater than between neighborhoods. However, adverse neighborhood conditions weakened the effects of known individual risk and protective factors, such as violence in the family of origin. Conclusions: If individual potential for child maltreatment is more evenly distributed across neighborhoods than reported maltreatment, then neighborhood and community play an important, if as yet unspecified, role in child maltreatment. Multi-level models are a promising research strategy for disentangling the complex interactions of individual and contextual factors in child maltreatment.

Social support and stress factors in child maltreatment among alcoholic families.

The relationships among social support, stress, child maltreatment and child aggressiveness in alcoholic families were investigated. Subjects were 62 fathers, 65 mothers, and 65 target children. Participants consisted of families in which the biological parents were either married or cohabiting, and in which there was a male child between the ages of 3 and 5 years. Individual difference factors assessed were extent of social support, stress, child maltreatment, and child aggressiveness. Based on prior research, 3 process models were proposed and tested against one another using path analysis. For this high risk alcoholic sample, results suggested that for fathers, social support and stress were each independent direct predictors of child maltreatment. In contrast, for mothers, social support was an indirect predictor of child maltreatment, and it buffered (moderated) the effect of stress on child maltreatment. For both fathers and mothers, lifetime alcohol problems predicted extent of child maltreatment. The data also indicated that child maltreatment influenced child aggressiveness.

Etiological factors in child maltreatment: A multivariate study of abusing, neglecting, and normal mothers.

Etiological factors in child maltreatment: A multivariate study of abusing, neglecting, and normal mothers.