Child Maltreatment Strengthening National Data On Child Fatalities Could Aid In Prevention

Child Maltreatment: Strengthening National Data on Child Fatalities Could Aid in Prevention

"Children's deaths from maltreatmentare especially distressing because theyinvolve a failure on the part of adultswho were responsible for protectingthem. Questions have been raised asto whether the federal National ChildAbuse and Neglect Data System(NCANDS), which is based onvoluntary state reports to theDepartment of Health and HumanServices (HHS), fully captures thenumber or circumstances of childfatalities from maltreatment. GAO wasasked to examine (1) the extent towhich HHS collects and reportscomprehensive information on childfatalities from maltreatment, (2) thechallenges states face in collecting andreporting this information to HHS, and(3) the assistance HHS provides tostates in collecting and reporting dataon child maltreatment fatalities. GAOanalyzed 2009 NCANDS data-thelatest data available-conducted anationwide Web-based survey of statechild welfare administrators, visitedthree states, interviewed HHS andother officials, and reviewed researchand relevant federal laws andregulations."

This Handbook examines core questions still remaining in the field of child maltreatment. It addresses major challenges in child maltreatment work, starting with the question of what child abuse and neglect is exactly. It then goes on to examine why maltreatment occurs and what its consequences are. Next, it turns to prevention, treatment and intervention, as well as legal perspectives. The book studies the issue from the perspective of the broader international and cross-cultural human experience. Its aim is to review what is known, but even more importantly, to examine what remains to be known to make progress in helping abused children, their families, and their communities.

This book addresses the development of our understanding of the abuse and neglect in the lives of children with disabilities. Disabilities in childhood uniquely dispose children for their abuse and neglect. Additionally, abuse and neglect dispose children for disabilities. The care and education of children with disabilities requires unique knowledge and skills and so does the consideration of their abuse and neglect. This book is based on data generated from an analysis of cases involving the abuse and neglect of children with disabilities as well as on an analysis of the data based literature in this area. Readers are provided with analysis and reflection exercises throughout the text so that they may analyze and reflect on their own awareness of the abuse and neglect of children with disabilities. Each chapter also contains a set of implications for research and practice. The final chapter focuses directly on prevention. Caregivers and professionals across disciplines will develop a new understanding of their roles in universal, secondary, and tertiary level prevention that is targeted, focused, data-based, and designed to prevent the abuse and neglect of children with disabilities in the first place.

The second edition of this successful handbook, edited by well-known experts in this field, includes core questions in the field of child abuse and neglect. It addresses major challenges in child maltreatment work, starting with “What is child abuse and neglect?” and then examines why maltreatment occurs and what are its consequences. The handbook also addresses prevention, intervention, investigation, treatment as well as civil and criminal legal perspectives. It comprehensively studies the issue from the perspective of a broader, international and cross-cultural human experience. Apart from a thorough revision of existing chapters, this edition includes many new chapters covering recent developments in this area and other issues not covered in the first edition. There is more focus on substance abuse, psychological abuse, and on social and community involvement and public health provisions in the prevention of child maltreatment. The handbook examines what is known now and more importantly what remains to be researched in the coming decades to help abused and neglected children, their families and their communities, thereby taking the field forward.