Preventing Child Maltreatment

When we think of child abuse, we imagine several different forms of harmful parenting and injuries to children. Most are not visible to the naked eye, but can be seen if you look more deeply. X-rays can detect fractures and other imaging can find internal injury and bleeding, but most maltreated children have more long-lasting harm that reveals itself through behavioral and emotional maladjustment, developmental delay, sadness, and other destructive behaviors later in childhood, adolescence and into adulthood. These injuries to their personality, sense of self, relationship to society and mental health change the trajectory of their lives and dim their potential, with social and financial costs for safety, treatment and their lost personal growth. We think of these as affecting everybody's children and that the responsibility lies with everyone to respond. This is why we put together this book: to address prevention from a number of perspectives and a variety of professions. We hope that it successfully brings together a number of disciplines and perspectives to address child abuse and neglect among the world's families, governments and cultures. We hope that those reading these chapters will realize that there are replicable best practices that can be reliably implemented based on child and family experiences and needs rather than single approaches designed to attack single forms of maltreatment, and we look forward to the day that books like these are not needed.

Deals with the promotion of emotional well-being in families, and the prevention of child maltreatment. Values, policies and resources are examined as both facilitators of, and barriers to, effective action.

A comprehensive guide to empirically supported approaches for child protection cases The Wiley Handbook of What Works in Child Maltreatment offers clinicians, psychologists, psychiatrists and other professionals an evidence-based approach to best professional practice when working in the area of child protection proceedings and the provision of assessment and intervention services in order to maximize the well-being of young people. It brings together a wealth of knowledge from expert researchers and practitioners, who provide a comprehensive overview of contemporary work informing theory, assessment, service provision, rehabilitation and therapeutic interventions for children and families undergoing care proceedings. Coverage includes theoretical perspectives, insights on the prevalence and effects of child neglect and abuse, assessment, children’s services, and interventions with children, victims and families.

This clear-sighted reference offers a transformative new lens for understanding the role of family processes in creating — and stopping — child abuse and neglect. Its integrative perspective emphasizes the interconnectedness of forms of abuse, the diverse mechanisms of family violence, and a child/family-centered, strengths-based approach to working with families. Chapters review evidence-based interventions and also model collaboration between family professionals for effective coordination of treatment and other services. This powerful ecological framework has major implications for improving assessment, treatment, and prevention as well as future research on child maltreatment. Included among the topics:• Creating a safe haven following child maltreatment: the benefits and limits of social support.• “Why didn’t you tell?” Helping families and children weather the process following a sexual abuse disclosure.• Environments recreated: the unique struggles of children born to abused mothers.• Evidence-based intervention: trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy for children and families.• Preventing the intergenerational transmission of child maltreatment through relational interventions.• Reducing the risk of child maltreatment: challenges and opportunities. Professionals and practitioners particularly interested in family processes, child maltreatment, and developmental psychology will find Parenting and Family Processes in Child Maltreatment and Intervention a major step forward in breaking entrenched abuse cycles and keeping families safe.

Child Maltreatment, Third Edition, by Cindy Miller-Perrin and Robin Perrin, is a thoroughly updated new edition of the first textbook for undergraduate students and beginning graduate students in this field. The text is designed to provide a comprehensive introduction to child maltreatment by disseminating current knowledge about the various types of violence against children. By helping students understand more fully the etiology, prevalence, treatment, policy issues, and prevention of child maltreatment, the authors hope to further our understanding of how to treat child maltreatment victims and how to prevent future child maltreatment.

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.

Many child abuse prevention programs have targeted factors within the family, such as parenting skills. This book describes the next wave of prevention: the promotion of safer, healthier childrearing environments in entire communities. The contributors are leading authorities who illuminate how contextual factors—including poverty, chaotic neighborhoods, and lack of social supports—combine with family factors to place children at risk for maltreatment. They present a range of exemplary programs designed to strengthen communities while also helping individual parents to meet their children's needs. Real-world evaluation approaches, quality-control strategies, and policy implications are discussed in depth.

Public policy responses to child sexual abuse are dominated by interventions designed to take effect only after offenders have already begun offending, and after children have already been sexually abused. Comparatively little attention has been given to alternative prevention strategies – particularly to those aimed at preventing sexual abuse before it might otherwise occur. Considerable knowledge has been accumulated on the characteristics, modus operandi and persistence of offenders, the characteristics, circumstances and outcomes for victims, and the physical and social settings in which sexual abuse occurs, but little work has been done to systematically apply this knowledge to prevention. This book aims to fulfill this objective through integrating clinical and criminological concepts and knowledge to inform a more comprehensive and effective public policy approach to preventing child sexual abuse. Empirical and theoretical knowledge concerning child sexual abuse is integrated with broader developments in evidence-based crime and child maltreatment prevention, leading to new ideas about understanding and preventing child sexual abuse. This book will be essential reading for anybody with interests in this field.