Child Abuse Review Archives - Page 4 of 5

May 4, 2016

What Helps Children and Young People Move Forward Following Child Maltreatment?

‘It is known that some young people show remarkable resilience to very negative experiences. For others, however, alongside a broad range of multiagency interventions, appropriate individual/family psychological support and therapeutic approaches are desirable and/or necessary to facilitate recovery and prevent a severe impact on the function and quality of victims’ lives.’ – Catherine Hamilton-Giachritsis

Our latest, themed, issue of Child Abuse Review focuses on a number of different interventions for children and young people following child maltreatment, and presents a positive picture of what can be done to help them move forward. Central to any effective intervention is an approach that learns from and engages with the ‘experts by experience’: both children and young people affected by abuse and neglect, and their parents. As Catherine Hamilton-Giachritsis points out in her accompanying editorial, two themes coming across in the included papers are ‘the role of parents, including communication style, warmth, sensitivity and responsiveness’ and ‘hearing the voices of young people’.

While the full articles are only available to BASPCAN members and subscribers to the journal, all abstracts can be accessed freely online.

Themed Issue on Interventions following child maltreatment. Child Abuse Review, 2016, 25:2

Table of Contents

Editorial: What helps children and young people move forward following child maltreatment? Catherine Hamilton-Giachritsis

Intervening with severely and chronically neglected children and their families: The contribution of trauma-informed approaches. Tristan Milot, Diane St-Laurent, Louise S. Éthier

Predictors of group treatment outcomes for child sexual abuse: An investigation of the role of demographic and abuse characteristics. Atara Hiller, Craig Springer, Justin Misurell, Amy Kranzler, Shireen Rizvi

Turning it around: What do Young women say helps them to move on from child sexual exploitation? Philip Gilligan

Head Start’s impact on cognitive outcomes for children in foster care. Kyunghee Lee

When preschool is not enough: Head Start and foster care (Invited Comment). Adam J Zolotor

Interrupting the intergenerational transmission of violence. Keri L.M. Pinna

Book Reviews and Training Updates

Practitioner toolkit: Getting it right for children and families affected by parental problem alcohol and drug use (Training Update)

FGM aware: Sara’s story (Training Update)

Attaching through love, hugs and play: simple strategies to help build connections with your child by Deborah D Gray (Book Review)

Treatment of child abuse: Common ground for mental health, medical and legal practitioners (2^nd Edition) edited by R. M. Reece, R. F. Hanson and J. Sargent (Book Review)

April 23, 2016April 22, 2016

Child Abuse Review: 25 years of supporting professionals and still improving

Yesterday we had our editorial board meeting for Child Abuse Review. It was encouraging to reflect on how the journal has been going and think about how we can make it even better for our readers and our authors.

Improving our readers’ experience

Child Abuse Review has always prided itself in publishing high quality research that is relevant to practitioners, accessible and readable. So it was encouraging to hear from our publishers that our article downloads have increased another 3% last year to nearly 80,000 from across the globe. We are always looking for ways to improve what we produce and how, so if you have any ideas do let us know. One particularly successful initiative last year was to produce a virtual issue on Child Protection in Nordic Countries, available freely for a short time. This has been followed by one on child sexual abuse and children’s rights, and others now in the pipeline:

Children’s oral health and wellbeing
Child sexual exploitation
Parental mental health problems

Keep an eye on the website for details of those, or sign up for our free contents alerts.

The number of full-text downloads for articles published in the journal has also increased this year, with our top 10 articles receiving an average of over 1,000 downloads:

If I saw Mum was upset… Children’s experiences of coercive control

‘If I saw Mum was upset I’d give her a cuddle or something like that, try and make her feel happy.’ (Bob, aged 12)

The Archers –

a ‘contemporary drama in a rural setting’ – is apparently the world’s longest-running radio soap opera.

Recently it has barged its way into our national consciousness with the unfolding storyline of the increasingly controlling behaviour of one of the main characters, Rob Titchener, towards his new wife, Helen. The narrative appears to have captured something of the reality of coercive and controlling behaviour that many women (and also fewer, though still many, men) in our society suffer as a daily, lived experience.

It is a reality that I am coming across increasingly in the Serious Case Reviews I have been studying as part of a Department for Education-funded project to explore the lessons that can be learned nationally from serious and fatal child maltreatment. Out of 175 case reviews where a child has died or been seriously harmed through abuse or neglect, 94 (54%) have had evidence of domestic violence within the parents’ relationships. I suspect the reality may be even higher.

And, sadly, that doesn’t capture the far greater numbers of children living with the fear and intimidation of ongoing domestic violence (both physical and through other coercive behaviours).

Beyond the physical incident model

In our January issue of Child Abuse Review, we published an important paper by Emma Katz from Liverpool Hope University: Beyond the physical incident model: How children living with domestic violence are harmed by and resist regimes of coercive control. Dr Katz interviewed 15 mothers and 15 children who had managed to separate from perpetrators of domestic violence.

‘Lots of times when Mum was giving me attention he’d tell her to go over to him so she’d have to leave me to play by myself.’ (Shannon, aged 10)

The responses to her interviews demonstrated how, even in the absence of specific incidents of physical violence, these children and young people experienced horrific lives which were dominated by the coercive, controlling behaviour of the perpetrators, including:

Control of the women’s and children’s time, movement and activities within the home
Preventing mothers spending time with their children
Limiting the children’s ability just to be children
Isolating mothers and children from their families, friends and sources of support
Restricting what mothers could spend their money on

‘[Because of the perpetrator’s/father’s control] I just didn’t go out, so then the children didn’t go out. It was just school and home. So they missed out on days out, family trips, socialising with people. And they’ve missed out on knowing what healthy relationships are about in other families because children don’t make as many friendships if you can’t mix with other mums.’ (Marie, mother)

However, in spite of the extremely negative impacts on these children, Dr Katz also found examples of remarkable resilience: of children and their mothers finding ways to support and sustain each other, and ultimately to escape from the entrapment that had been built around them.

In her paper, Dr Katz argues that we need to move beyond models based on specific incidents of physical violence, to be aware of the daily lived reality of many of these mothers and children, and to seek ways to recognise and support their attempts to build resilience and break free.

You can read and download Dr Katz’s report for free from the Child Abuse Review website.

March 3, 2016

The shifting culture of child protection

The year 2016 marks the 25^th anniversary of Child Abuse Review and I am pleased to announce that our first issue of the anniversary volume is now freely available online. The issue contains five stimulating original articles along with two training updates, two book reviews, and our accompanying editorial.

The primary paper to launch this anniversary volume is Nigel Parton’s review of the contemporary politics of child protection, based on his Founder’s lecture at the 2015 BASPCAN congress in Edinburgh. Parton provides a wide-ranging review of the issues facing child protection in the UK today and his paper is well worth reading.

Over the past 25 years a lot has changed in the child protection field.

Parton argues that the child protection systems introduced through the Children Act 1989 were in response to a number of high-profile cases of physical and sexual child abuse within the family, and that this created a tension between professionals intervening ‘too little and too late’ or conversely, ‘too early and too much’.

‘The Children Act 1989 was thus centrally concerned with trying to establish a new set of balances between the state and the family in the care and protection of children. I argued (Parton, 1992) that the idea of child protection at that time, in the early 1990s, was essentially concerned with both the protection of children from ‘significant harm’ in the family and also the protection of the family from unwarrantable and inappropriate state interventions. Crucially the focus of law, policy and practice was how we could best address the abuse of children within the family and the primary concerns were physical and sexual abuse.’

Over the past two decades, however, the nature of child protection has changed, and reflects broader shifts in our culture. The recognition of both physical and sexual abuse within a variety of institutions and community settings, along with research highlighting the long-term impact of chronic abuse and neglect, has led to a broadening and an increasing complexity of what now constitutes child protection or safeguarding:

An increasing focus on the full range of the life-course from pre-birth to young adulthood, particularly as the dangers of child neglect in the early months of life and its impact on the brain and child development have received considerable attention;
The recognition that young people themselves, as well as adults, can perpetrate abuse;
The growth of new dangers including those related to the internet and a range of forms of social media and, most recently, the dangers of ‘radicalisation’;
The identification of new forms of abuse which include female genital mutilation, forced marriage and child sexual exploitation.

Within this context, child welfare professionals across the country work incredibly hard to support families and protect children. In the research I am currently working on for the Department of Education, we have identified a year-on-year increase in child protection activity, but in spite of this, no change in the number of deaths directly caused by maltreatment, and, if anything, a reduction in fatality rates in all but the late adolescent group.

During the years 2011-14, a total of 1,856,400 referrals were received by children’s social care services in England, an average of 619,000 per year.

However, in contrast to this recognition of the extremely good and sensitive work being done by professionals, Parton argues that ‘debates about child protection have become increasingly emotionally charged and politicised’ with what he calls ‘a politicised narrative of blame and failure’. Rather than being seen as motivated professionals who are committed to working for children’s safety and well-being, child protection workers are blamed both for failing to protect children and for disrupting families.

In a complex world in which children grow and thrive, are abused, exploited and neglected, have fun and participate, laugh, play, cry and cower in fear, we need to challenge this culture of blame and failure, and instead work to support children and families, and the professionals who work with them every day. We need to move to a narrative of ‘progress and hope’, celebrating all that has been achieved in supporting children’s rights, and taking those opportunities to learn and improve.

I’d encourage you to take a look at Nigel Parton’s paper and the other papers in this special anniversary edition of Child Abuse Review.

Child Abuse Review, Volume 25, Issue 1: Contents

Jane V Appleton & Peter Sidebotham. 25 Years of Supporting Professionals in Safeguarding Children (pages 3–8)

#itsnotok: Sexual abuse and sexual violence awareness week

This week is the inaugural Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence Awareness week ‘#itsnotok’ (1-7 February 2016), a national awareness campaign supported by BASPCAN, the NSPCC, NAPAC and other organisations.

In support of this, we have published a special virtual issue of Child Abuse Review:

Child Sexual Abuse and Children’s Rights

This collection of eleven papers, all of which are available on open access, has been selected from a much larger body of work that BASPCAN has published in Child Abuse Review over the past 24 years. Each paper has helped to stimulate the ongoing debate in respect of child sexual abuse and children’s rights to better protection and therapeutic services.

In an accompanying editorial, Jonathan Picken, Independent Consultant; and Chair, Education and Learning Sub-Committee, BASPCAN points out the timeliness and importance of this issue:

Papers published during this period helped shape professional practice and supported colleagues who were often severely criticised for their attempts to bring the scandal of such abuse and exploitation to the attention of the public. It is apt, therefore, that the recent critical assessment of child sexual abuse (CSA) in the family network, ‘Protecting children from harm’ (Office of the Children’s Commissioner, 2015) should highlight the true prevalence of sexual abuse across England and help continue the campaign to ensure rights enshrined within the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) are fully recognised and protected.

I would encourage you to read Jonathan’s editorial and the associated papers of the virtual issue. Sexual abuse and sexual violence are crucially important issues that are not going to go away. Perhaps more than any other kind of maltreatment, sexual abuse hits at the core of a person’s identity, and leaves deep scars. We owe it to women and children the world over to take this seriously and to continue to strive to improve our responses to sexual abuse and violence, working to prevent such violence and to support those affected by it.

Like many other authors whose work has helped inform our understanding of CSA, authors of these 11 papers have contributed much to the ongoing battle to end such abuse and exploitation. Their work is celebrated here in the hope that it will continue to provoke debate across the coalition of partner organisations coordinating #itsnotok and efforts to raise awareness of sexual abuse and violence and the services available. The associated week of action comes at an opportune moment as the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse chaired by Justice Goddard progresses its work. The need for similar investigations across the five nations perhaps finally vindicates the efforts of BASPCAN members and other colleagues who have continued to highlight the needs of those affected.

Virtual Issue Contents

The pattern of child sexual abuse in Northern Ireland
(Volume 1, Issue 2, 1992)
M. T. Kennedy and M. K. C. Manwell

Pornography and the organization of intrafamilial and extrafamilial child sexual abuse: developing a conceptual model
(Volume 6, Issue 2, 1997)
Catherine Itzin

Prevention of sexual abuse in children with learning disabilities
(Volume 7, Issue 5, 1998)
Ana Maria Martorella and Ana Maria Portugues

The neglected priority: sexual abuse in the context of residential child care
(Volume 8, Issue 6, 1999)
Meg Lindsay

Assessment and intervention in cases of suspected ritual child sexual abuse
(Volume 10, Issue 4, 2001)
Bernard Gallagher

Commercial and sexual exploitation of children and young people in the UK – a review
(Volume 14, Issue 1, 2005)
Elaine Chase and June Statham

Twenty-first century party people: Young people and sexual exploitation in the new millennium
(Volume 22, Issue 3, 2013)
Margaret Melrose

Dealing with a problem that doesn’t exist? Professional responses to female perpetrated child sexual abuse
(Volume 16, Issue 4, 2007)
Lisa Bunting

In Demand: Therapeutic services for children and young people who have experienced sexual abuse
(Volume 21, Issue 5, 2012)
Debra Allnock, Lorraine Radford, Lisa Bunting, Avril Price, Natalie Morgan-Klein, Jane Ellis and Anne Stafford

Disclosure of child sexual abuse: Delays, non-disclosure and partial disclosure. What the research tells us and implications for practice
(Volume 24, Issue 3, 2015)
Rosaleen McElvaney

Social work intervention to protect children: Aspects of research and practice
(Volume 1, Issue 1, 1992)
Olive Stevenson

January 4, 2016

Parental beliefs and child protection

In 2012 a young infant was admitted to a London hospital, having been found unresponsive in his cot by his parents. A post-mortem examination showed that the child had died of florid rickets caused by severe vitamin D deficiency (Windibank, 2014). The parents, strict vegans with strong religious beliefs had refused any medical intervention for their child, including routine immunisations and health surveillance. They also refused vitamin D supplements, recommended by doctors when it was identified that both he and his mother were deficient. When the child became unwell with an infection, the parents did not seek any health care, stating that they were awaiting a ‘sign from God’.

In June 2015, 3 Muslim women from Bradford, UK, disappeared along with their 9 children, aged between 3 and 15 years. It is believed that they travelled to Syria via Saudi Arabia and Turkey, that their motivation was that they didn’t want their children growing up in England, and that they had a brother who was understood to be fighting with extremists in Syria (BBC, 2015).

In both these situations we could assume that the parents loved their children and would not have wished any harm to come to them. The parents were apparently motivated by their beliefs; we presume that none perceived their actions as abusive. And yet, all these children were either seriously harmed or at least potentially put at risk of harm.

Parental beliefs have the potential to be a great force for good in a child’s life and development; they also have the potential to cause great harm. Deciding when the state has a duty to intervene and act in contravention of a parent’s beliefs is fraught with legal and ethical dilemmas. However, it is not an issue we can ignore, particularly given all we know of abuses suffered in religious institutions, and a growing awareness of the risks posed by strongly-held fundamentalist beliefs (Gilligan, 2009; Sidebotham & Appleton, 2012).

The latest issue of Child Abuse Review, published just before Christmas, explores these issues. The issue includes papers on the complexities of exploring child protection within Islamic contexts and attitudes towards corporal punishment, both of which I discuss in the accompanying editorial. In addition, there are papers on child protection in sport; sex offenders’ awareness of online security; young people’s understanding of parental substance misuse and domestic violence; and the needs of child protection workers.

Click Here to see the Editorial and full list of contents

BBC (Producer). (2015, 9.9.15). Missing Bradford sisters: Mother ‘didn’t want children to grow up in UK’. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33201176

Gilligan, P. (2009). Considering religion and beliefs in child protection and safeguarding work: is any consensus emerging? Child Abuse Review, 18(2), 94-110. doi: 10.1002/car.1059

Sidebotham, P., & Appleton, J. V. (2012). Understanding Complex Systems of Abuse: Institutional and Ritual Abuse. Child Abuse Review, 21(6), 389-393. doi: 10.1002/car.2253

Windibank, O. (2014). Serious case review: Baby F: D.O.B. 01/01/2012: D.O.D. 14/06/2012: independent overview report. Bexley: Bexley Safeguarding Children Board.

July 17, 2015November 23, 2015

Learning To Listen: To Young People, Parents, Perpetrators

I don’t want to talk about it… It’s too horrible. But in the end I became so frightened of her I used to start shaking when she came into the room.

So said Matilda’s teacher, Miss Honey, in Roald Dahl’s classic children’s book (Dahl and Blake, 1989, p. 198). In a simple children’s story, Dahl poignantly captures just how difﬁcult young people (and adults) ﬁnd it to talk about the abuse they experience:

I have found it impossible to talk to anyone about my problems. I couldn’t face the embarrassment, and anyway I lack the courage. Any courage I had was knocked out of me when I was young (p. 195).

The reality of that is captured in the ﬁrst paper in the latest issue of Child Abuse Review. In a review of research on disclosure of child sexual abuse, Rosaleen McElvaney (2015) highlights both quantitative data on the prevalence of non-disclosure and delays in disclosure, and qualitative data exploring the complexity and individuality of issues around disclosure. McElvaney concludes that ‘signiﬁcant numbers of children do not disclose experiences of sexual abuse until adulthood and adult survey results suggest that signiﬁcant proportions of adults have never disclosed such abuse’ (p. 161)

Continue reading “Learning To Listen: To Young People, Parents, Perpetrators”

June 19, 2015June 19, 2015

Child Abuse Review Impact Factor

I am delighted to report that we have just received news of the 2014 Thomson Reuters journal citation report, and the Impact Factor for Child Abuse Review has risen from 0.787 to 0.841. This represents the fourth successive rise and an increase of 51% from our 2011 Impact Factor. We are ranked 18 out of 40 journals in both the social work and family studies fields.

While the Impact Factor has its limitations, it does affirm that Child Abuse Review is increasingly being recognised as a high quality scientific journal publishing good papers which are being cited elsewhere.

Perhaps of more importance, though not reflected in the Impact Factor, the feedback we get from both researchers and practitioners is that Child Abuse Review is perceived as an accessible journal which is of relevance to front-line workers as well as academics, and the material we publish does impact on evidence-informed practice to protect children.

Category: Child Abuse Review