Child Maltreatment Fatalities Factsheet, Essay Example

There used to be times when parents were considered totally responsible for the way they raised their children, for their children’s destiny, and the health and well-being of their offspring. As Myers (2011) noted, in 1869, the attorney of a blind child’s father who confined his son in a cold cellar in the middle of the winter protected the right of that father to raise his children the way he considered appropriate and fit (p. 3). The Illinois Supreme Court disagreed with that opinion and admitted that the parental authority should be exercised over children with proper regard to common reason and humanity (Myers, 2011). Hence, the issue of child maltreatment has a long history of existence in the USA, and it has already become the social issue in the state, causing a serious emotional, economic, and physical burden on the victims of child maltreatment and abuse, and on the community called to mitigate the threat of child maltreatment and to protect children. As Fergusson, Boden, and Horwood (2008) admitted, exposure to sexual and physical abuse in childhood predetermines a much higher risk of developing depression, anxiety disorders, anti-social personality disorder, substance dependence and abuse, and other maladaptive and dysfunctional practices by people, which implies the long-term crippling effect of the child maltreatment experiences on the individuals. Being unable to cope with their mental and behavioral disorders, victims of child abuse fail to get proper education, to get decent employment, and to participate adequately in the social and economic life of their community. What is worse, they often also involve in criminal and illegal activities. Hence, the child abuse and maltreatment cases are potentially capable of producing long-term negative effects on the society and social stability and welfare.

At present, one can surely admit that the concept of child maltreatment is considered socially constructed; the vision of the abuser and the child existing separately from the society is not valid any longer, since the social constructed experience with deviance has been repeatedly noted by the research evidence. Children are neglected and abused in the families where parents are divorced and children get into the care of stepparents; parents with substance abuse problems, mental disorders, or behavioral problems are also much more involved in the child abuse, according to statistics. Commercial sexual abuse of children is considered more prevalent in the regions with low socio-economic wellbeing and high crime rates. Hence, as one can see, though the exclusive blame for the crime of child abuse is on the criminal, the society plays a crucial role both in creating the environment for the child abuse and maltreatment, and in the prevention of such practices.

Finally, the argument for the social nature of child maltreatment is that the community in which individuals live and are educated also has a direct impact on the way in which child maltreatment is approached. For some people (in the US and worldwide), child maltreatment and strict discipline have fuzzy boundaries, and they expose their children to rough disciplinary measures, associating abuse only with trauma, broken bones, and blood. However, child maltreatment is a much wider concept including the psychological and emotional discomfort that children experience. The social nature of child maltreatment is that it may disappear as soon as the society is effectively educated on what child maltreatment is, it becomes more sensitive and alert to suspected cases of abuse and maltreatment, and involves in self-regulation in terms of raising and treating children with dignity and respect.

The US CPS system is reasonably considered one of the most proficient and extensive systems for child welfare protection in the world; however, the numbers of child fatalities are still abhorrent nationwide, which implies the need to look for innovative, more effective ways of managing child maltreatment issues and preventing the child fatality tragedies. According to DePanfilis (2011), despite the centrality of CPS in the majority of child welfare-related issues, “many professionals have roles to play in reporting suspected abuse and neglect, investigating alleged maltreatment, and providing medical and mental health services to children and families” (p. 39). Hence, as one can see, CPS is a vital agency securing the rights of children for a decent living, but the problem of child maltreatment cannot be solved only with the help of CPS effort. As Goldman and Salus (2003) claimed, the effective child protection framework should include the CPS, law enforcement, early child care, health care, mental health, legal and judicial, substitute care professionals, members of the faith community, community organizations, and support services providers for the child protection to be comprehensive. Moreover, child protection services should be individualized with the proper understanding of the child’s and family’s history of maltreatment, the culture, socio-economic status, the history of substance abuse, etc. to determine the chances of the child to be maltreated again (Goldman & Salus, 2003).

There is also a need for CPS not to focus exclusively on the parents of the child, but to conduct thorough examinations of other caretakers and family members in which the child will live to avoid the tragedies with child fatalities. The neglect towards the mental state and violent inclinations of Sirita Sotello’s stepmother was the prime reason for the girl’s tragic death at the age of five from severe physical abuse conducted by her father’s wife (Meinig & Dowd, 2005). Hence, in this case, father went through the regular substance and psychological checks and showed good results while his wife was not examined, and finally murdered the girl. There is a need to view the family in which the child is going to live after the family’s reunification as the whole unit in which all family members can affect the child’s well-being equally strongly. The hand-sisters and brothers, stepparents, other caretakers, and even the friends’ circle should be examined by the CPS to determine the conditions in which the child will exist, and to foresee any potential threats to the child’s life and welfare.

Goldman and Salus (2003) emphasized the need to look deeper into the causes of the child maltreatment’s emergence in a family to design the effective intervention, and ensure the family’s reunification. Such factors as the abuser’s age, substance abuse history, psychological state, maltreatment history, and other factors of genetic and social nature have to be considered in the process of identifying the exposure to abusive behaviors. However, there is also a necessity to understand the fatalities’ causes better; contrary to the widespread opinion, the major part of child fatalities occurs because of neglect and not abuse (Douglas & Finkelhor, 2005). Hence, children should not necessarily be beaten, short, or stabbed to die – the overwhelmingly large portion of child fatalities occurs when children are smaller than one year of age, which means that parents fail to provide their children with their basic needs such as nutrition, shelter, and proper treatment rather than apply violence to them. These causes of fatalities should be attended to for the sake of developing community educational projects to enlighten parents or future parents on the fundamentals of child care to prevent a certain percentage of fatalities because of carelessness.

Describe the status of this topic & the level of evidence-based practice available.

The topic “Home Visiting for Child Well-Being” has been chosen for review. The present field relates to the research of Home Visiting programs aimed at the improvement of child well-being, physical health, development, and school preparation. The present topic is widely researched up to date, and fields with well-supported research evidence include the outcomes of Healthy Families America and Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) programs, topics supported with fair research evidence include Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY), promising research evidence was found on the topics of the AVANCE Family Support and Education Program and Circle of Security (COS) programs, Early Head Start, Families First, Parent-Child Home Program, Parents as Teachers, SafeCare®, and Sure Start. The non-rated evidence is present on research of the Early Steps to School Success (ESSS) program.

Briefly state why evidence-based practice is important in this area.

EBP is highly important in the present field, because CPS are still predominantly reliant on the optimistic vision of the child’s family, and all possible efforts are allocated to reuniting the victim of child neglect, abuse, or maltreatment with his or her parents. Despite the fact that some parents may be inappropriate for parenting by nature, some of them are still promising members of society who made certain mistakes, and who want to change but do not know how to do that, or are disabled by the environment or community in which the live. Hence, the EBP on the functioning of such programs aimed at regular home visiting to check the child’s living conditions, physical well-being is essential for promoting a more scholarly, planned, and informed approach to reuniting families instead of exposing children to the risk of recurrent abuse.

Why is the evidence in the topic you have chosen weak or (relatively) strong?

The evidence presented on the topic of home visiting for child well-being may be considered fairly strong because there are a number of programs systematically monitored and researched in terms of their outcomes’ efficiency. At the page of this topic, research on twelve home visiting programs is presented, and new programs can be created in case systematic evidence elicited from research proves their effectiveness. Hence, the research focus on the organization of home visits to ensure children’s well-being in families with the prior history of child abuse is a very attractive topic raising much attention in the recent scholarly practice, mainly due to the fact that the recurrent child abuse is often reported in the reunited families to which victims of child maltreatment and neglect are returned in hope for parents’ rehabilitation.

What specifically is needed to improve evidence-based practice in this topic area?

The EBP on the topic of home visiting for child well-being may be improved by the initiation of more longitudinal studies in which parents and children would take part and share their experiences of rehabilitation and reunification. It is obvious that many families are subject to mandatory participation in the CPS programs after the accusation of child abuse and neglect has been issued, and parents were subject to a legal prosecution or even child’s removal from the family. However, after some time passes and families are freed from the home-visiting control, child abuse may repeat. Hence, more EBP is necessary about the sufficient time of home-visiting program’s duration to guarantee parents’ rehabilitation, the scope of social and psychological interventions for the family members needed to direct them at proactive, balanced, and violence-free relationships in a family, and the evidence of the effect of such programs on the children’s well-being to attract more financing to this field of child welfare provision.

References

DePanfilis, D. (2011). Child Protection System. In Myers, J. E. B. (Ed.), The APSAC Handbook on Child Maltreatment. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, pp. 39-52.

Douglas, E. M., & Finkelhor, D. (2005). Child Maltreatment Fatalities Factsheet. Crimes Against Children Research Center. Durham, NH.

Fergusson, D. M., Boden, J. M., Horwood, L. J. (2008). Exposure to childhood sexual and physical abuse and adjustment in early childhood. Child Abuse & Neglect, 32, 607-619.

Goldman, J., & Salus, M. (2003). A Coordinated Response to Child Abuse and Neglect: The Foundation for Practice. U. S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Administration on Children, Youth, and Families, Children’s Bureau Office on Child Abuse and Neglect.

Home Visiting for Child Well-Being (2013). The California Evidence-Based Clearinghouse for Child Welfare. Retrieved from http://www.cebc4cw.org/topic/home-visiting/

Meinig, M., & Dowd, P. (2005). Sirita Sotello: Fatality Review. Report of the Office of the Family and Children’s Ombudsman, pp. 1-19.

Myers, J. E. B. (Ed.), The APSAC Handbook on Child Maltreatment. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.