child abuse essay introduction body conclusion

Child Abuse Essay Example

Many parents are not aware of the signs of child abuse. This is largely due to the fact that they do not want to believe it could happen or they are in denial. Abuse can manifest itself as an extreme lack of empathy, which is also known as coldness. There are other signs to look for including a decline in school performance, mood swings, and aggressive behavior. If you suspect your child has been abused there are several resources available to help find out if it truly happened and get them to help if necessary.

• Thesis Statement
• Introduction

Essay Example On Child Abuse

Thesis Statement Every kind of child abuse is harmful to better cognitive development which can create multiple social issues. Introduction Child abuse is an umbrella term that covers so many aspects. It is not just limited up to torturing or dismantling a child on a physical basis but mental and sexual harassment is also a part of it. Sometimes in many cases, parents are found to be guilty of such major problems in society. The goal of different types of child abuse also differs in every situation. For instance, parents abusing their child by forcing him to work at minor age are backed by the financial crisis of the family. Similarly, mental torture could be given to a child for performing below the par in his studies. All these pressures restrict the proper growth of children which leads to many crises in society. Get Non-Plagiarized Custom Essay on Child Abuse in USA Order Now Main Body Child abuse is rising with increasing poverty and competition among people. To become the survivor of this cut-throat competition, it becomes a necessity for people to push their minor children into the workforce. Here are some important points that will highlight the issue of child abuse in a deeper sense. Who is Responsible for Child Abuse? We cannot blame a single person for the problem of child abuse. As discussed above child abuse could be described in multiple dimensions. A person who abuses a child sexually cannot be justified on any grounds but pushing children to work at a minor age can be justified with poverty. Here are some forces that are responsible for child abuse. Society –  Multiple social customs based on the cast restrict children to take admission to the school. These customs are mainly gendered biased for girls and transgender. As a result of which these children have to work at a very low age. Social Institutions –  Social institutions like a police departments, education centers are also biased towards the punishment of culprits who are responsible for child abuse and giving admission to students of lower strata respectively. Class System –  Class system is another big reason for child abuse in society due to different rights for the people of different classes. Poverty –  Poverty is the most challenging reason that is difficult to cope up with for child abuse. Parents are sending their children and wards to labor at a very small age due to poverty. These were the main reasons behind child abuse that must be uprooted from society. We cannot imagine a society that is ideal and does not involve child abuse at any point without mitigating the issue of poverty in it. How to Deter the Issue of Child Abuse Child abuse is a problem that needs to be addressed very carefully. This is the high time when professionals and intelligentsia of society should take some major steps to reduce and eradicate this problem. Here are some suggestions that could be used for handling the problem of child abuse by people. Equal Distribution of Economic Resources – The economic resources of a region or country must be distributed evenly among the citizens. This is very important to maintain equality among people of different communities. When there will be no crisis for money the issue of child abuse could be managed at some level. No Injustice on the Grounds of Cast and Gender –  By reducing the injustice on the grounds of cast and gender we can send all the children to school easily. Thus child labor would no longer exist in society. Awareness about Child Abuse in the Society –  Child abuse awareness campaign in the different parts of the world is also important. Parents are not mindful of the fact many times that their children are exploited on sexual as well as physical grounds by the rich when. Often poor children are taken away by the rich businessmen and merchants in the name of the job. But the wages paid to these children are negligible as compared to the work they have to do. When parents would be aware of this fact they will not send the children for manual labor. Conclusion We should work together in a union to fight against the problem of child abuse. Children are the main pillar of any nation for economic and social growth. If they will be harassed and given major traumas in their very childhood, it can disturb society with their growth. Intelligentsia of society should discuss some relevant points to deter with this serious problem effectively. Only then a bright and stable future of a country or nation could be presumed by the citizens. Buy Customized Essay on Child Abuse At Cheapest Price Order Now

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Understanding Child Abuse and Neglect (1993)

Chapter: 1 introduction, 1 introduction.

Child maltreatment is a devastating social problem in American society. In 1990, over 2 million cases of child abuse and neglect were reported to social service agencies. In the period 1979 through 1988, about 2,000 child deaths (ages 0-17) were recorded annually as a result of abuse and neglect (McClain et al., 1993), and an additional 160,000 cases resulted in serious injuries in 1990 alone (Daro and McCurdy, 1991). However tragic and sensational, the counts of deaths and serious injuries provide limited insight into the pervasive long-term social, behavioral, and cognitive consequences of child abuse and neglect. Reports of child maltreatment alone also reveal little about the interactions among individuals, families, communities, and society that lead to such incidents.

American society has not yet recognized the complex origins or the profound consequences of child victimization. The services required for children who have been abused or neglected, including medical care, family counseling, foster care, and specialized education, are expensive and are often subsidized by governmental funds. The General Accounting Office (1991) has estimated that these services cost more than $500 million annually. Equally disturbing, research suggests that child maltreatment cases are highly related to social problems such as juvenile delinquency, substance abuse, and violence, which require additional services and severely affect the quality of life for many American families.

The Importance Of Child Maltreatment Research

The challenges of conducting research in the field of child maltreatment are enormous. Although we understand comparatively little about the causes, definitions, treatment, and prevention of child abuse and neglect, we do know enough to recognize that the origins and consequences of child victimization are not confined to the months or years in which reported incidents actually occurred. For those who survive, the long-term consequences of child maltreatment appear to be more damaging to victims and their families, and more costly for society, than the immediate or acute injuries themselves. Yet little is invested in understanding the factors that predispose, mitigate, or prevent the behavioral and social consequences of child maltreatment.

The panel has identified five key reasons why child maltreatment research should be viewed as a central nexus of more comprehensive research activity.

Research On Child Maltreatment Is Currently Undervalued And Undeveloped

Research in the field of child maltreatment studies is relatively undeveloped when compared with related fields such as child development, so-

cial welfare, and criminal violence. Although no specific theory about the causes of child abuse and neglect has been substantially replicated across studies, significant progress has been gained in the past few decades in identifying the dimensions of complex phenomena that contribute to the origins of child maltreatment.

Efforts to improve the quality of research on any group of children are dependent on the value that society assigns to the potential inherent in young lives. Although more adults are available in American society today as service providers to care for children than was the case in 1960, a disturbing number of recent reports have concluded that American children are in trouble (Fuchs and Reklis, 1992; National Commission on Children, 1991; Children's Defense Fund, 1991).

Efforts to encourage greater investments in research on children will be futile unless broader structural and social issues can be addressed within our society. Research on general problems of violence, substance addiction, social inequality, unemployment, poor education, and the treatment of children in the social services system is incomplete without attention to child maltreatment issues. Research on child maltreatment can play a key role in informing major social policy decisions concerning the services that should be made available to children, especially children in families or neighborhoods that experience significant stress and violence.

As a nation, we already have developed laws and regulatory approaches to reduce and prevent childhood injuries and deaths through actions such as restricting hot water temperatures and requiring mandatory child restraints in automobiles. These important precedents suggest how research on risk factors can provide informed guidance for social efforts to protect all of America's children in both familial and other settings.

Not only has our society invested relatively little in research on children, but we also have invested even less in research on children whose families are characterized by multiple problems, such as poverty, substance abuse, violence, welfare dependency, and child maltreatment. In part, this slower development is influenced by the complexities of research on major social problems. But the state of research on this topic could be advanced more rapidly with increased investment of funds. In the competition for scarce research funds, the underinvestment in child maltreatment research needs to be understood in the context of bias, prejudice, and the lack of a clear political constituency for children in general and disadvantaged children in particular (Children's Defense Fund, 1991; National Commission on Children, 1991). Factors such as racism, ethnic discrimination, sexism, class bias, institutional and professional jealousies, and social inequities influence the development of our national research agenda (Bell, 1992, Huston, 1991).

The evolving research agenda has also struggled with limitations im-

posed by attempting to transfer the results of sample-specific studies to diverse groups of individuals. The roles of culture, ethnic values, and economic factors pervade the development of parenting practices and family dynamics. In setting a research agenda for this field, ethnic diversity and multiple cultural perspectives are essential to improve the quality of the research program and to overcome systematic biases that have restricted its development.

Researchers must address ethical and legal issues that present unique obligations and dilemmas regarding selection of subjects, provision of services, and disclosure of data. For example, researchers who discover an undetected incident of child abuse in the course of an interview are required by state laws to disclose the identities of the victim and offender(s), if known, to appropriate child welfare officials. These mandatory reporting requirements, adopted in the interests of protecting children, may actually cause long-term damage to children by restricting the scope of research studies and discouraging scientists from developing the knowledge base necessary to guide social interventions.

Substantial efforts are now required to reach beyond the limitations of current knowledge and to gain new insights that can improve the quality of social service efforts and public policy decisions affecting the health and welfare of abused and neglected children and their families. Most important, collaborative long-term research ventures are necessary to diminish social, professional, and institutional prejudices that have restricted the development of a comprehensive knowledge base that can improve understanding of, and response to, child maltreatment.

Dimensions Of Child Abuse And Neglect

The human dimensions of child maltreatment are enormous and tragic. The U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect has called the problem of child maltreatment ''an epidemic" in American society, one that requires a critical national emergency response.

The scale and severity of child abuse and neglect has caused various public and private organizations to mobilize efforts to raise public awareness of individual cases and societal trends, to improve the reporting and tracking of child maltreatment cases, to strengthen the responses of social service systems, and to develop an effective and fair system for protecting and offering services to victims while also punishing adults who deliberately harm children or place them in danger. Over the past several decades, a growing number of state and federal funding programs, governmental reports, specialized journals, and research centers, as well as national and international societies and conferences, have examined various dimensions of the problem of child maltreatment.

The results of these efforts have been inconsistent and uneven. In addressing aspects of each new revelation of abuse or each promising new intervention, research efforts often have become diffuse, fragmented, specific, and narrow. What is lacking is a coordinated approach and a general conceptual framework that can add new depth to our understanding of child maltreatment. A coordinated approach can accommodate diverse perspectives while providing direction and guidance in establishing research priorities and synthesizing research knowledge. Organizational mechanisms are also needed to facilitate the application and integration of research on child maltreatment in related areas such as child development, family violence, substance abuse, and juvenile delinquency.

Child maltreatment is not a new problem, yet concerted service, research, and policy attention toward it is just beginning. Although isolated studies of child maltreatment appeared in the medical and sociological literature in the first half of the twentieth century, the publication of "The Battered Child Syndrome" by C. Henry Kempe and associates (1962) is generally considered the first definitive paper in the field in the United States. The efforts of Kempe and others to publicize disturbing medical experience with child abuse and neglect led to the passage of the first Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act in 1974 (P.L. 93-247). The act, which has been amended several times (most recently in 1992), established a governmental program designed to guide and consolidate national and state data collection efforts regarding reports of child abuse and neglect, conduct national surveys of household violence, and sponsor research and demonstration programs to prevent, identify, and treat child abuse and neglect.

However, the federal government's leadership role in building a research base in this area has been complicated by changes and inconsistencies in research plans and priorities, limited funding, politicized peer review, fragmentation of effort among various federal agencies, poorly scheduled proposal review deadlines, and bias introduced by competing institutional objectives. 1 The lack of comprehensive, long-term planning for a research base has resulted in a field characterized by contradictions, conflict, and fragmentation. The role of the National Center for Child Abuse and Neglect as the lead federal agency in supporting research in this field has been sharply criticized (U.S. Advisory Board, 1991). Many observers believe that the federal government lacks leadership, funding, and an effective research program for studies on child maltreatment.

The Complexity Of Child Maltreatment

Child maltreatment was originally seen in the form of "the battered child," often portrayed in terms of physical abuse. Today, four general categories of child maltreatment are generally recognized: (1) physical

abuse, (2) sexual abuse, (3) neglect, and (4) emotional maltreatment. Each category covers a range of behaviors, as discussed in Chapter 2.

These four categories have become the focus of separate studies of incidence and prevalence, etiology, prevention, consequences, and treatment, with uneven development of research within each area and poor integration of knowledge across areas. Each category has developed its own typology and framework of reference terms, revealing certain similarities (such as the importance of developmental perspectives in considering the consequences of maltreatment) but also important differences (such as the predatory behavior associated with some forms of sexual abuse that do not appear in the etiology of other forms of child maltreatment).

In addition to the category of child maltreatment, the duration, source, intensity, timing, and situational context of incidents of child victimization are now recognized as important factors in studying the origin and consequences of child maltreatment. Yet information about these factors is rarely requested or recorded by social agencies or health professionals in the process of identifying or documenting reports of child maltreatment. Furthermore, research is often weakened by variation in research definitions of child maltreatment, bias in the recruitment of research subjects, the absence of information regarding circumstances surrounding maltreatment reports, the absence of measures to assess selected variables under study, and the absence of a developmental perspective in many research studies.

The co-occurrence of different forms of child maltreatment has been examined only to a limited extent. Relatively little is known about areas of similarity and differences in terms of causes, consequences, prevention, and treatment of selected types of child abuse and neglect. Inconsistencies in definitions often preclude comparative analyses of clinical studies. For example, studies of sexual abuse have indicated wide variations in its prevalence, often as a result of differences in the types of behavior that might be included in the definition adopted by each research investigator. Emotional abuse is also a matter of controversy in some quarters, primarily because of broad variations in its definition.

Research on child maltreatment is also complicated by the fragmentation of services and responses by which our society addresses specific reports of child maltreatment. Cases may involve children who are victims or witnesses to single or repeated incidents of child abuse and neglect. Sadly, child maltreatment often involves various family members, relatives, or other individuals who reside in the homes or neighborhoods of the affected children. Adult figures may be perpetrators of offensive incidents or mediators in intervention or prevention efforts.

The importance of the social ecological framework of the child has only recently been recognized in studies of maltreatment. Responses to child abuse and neglect involve a variety of social institutions, including commu-

nities, schools, hospitals, churches, youth associations, the media, and other social structures that provide services for children. Such groups and organizations present special intervention opportunities to reduce the scale and scope of the problem of child maltreatment, but their activities are often poorly documented and uncoordinated. Finally, governmental offices at the local, state, and federal levels have legal and social obligations to develop programs and resources to address child maltreatment, and their role is critical in developing a research agenda for this field.

In the past, the research agenda has been determined predominantly by pragmatic needs in the development and delivery of treatment and prevention services rather than by theoretical paradigms, a process that facilitates short-term studies of specialized research priorities but impedes the development of a well-organized, coherent body of scientific knowledge that can contribute over time to understanding fundamental principles and issues. As a result, the research in this field has been generally viewed by the scientific community as fragmented, diffuse, decentralized, and of poor quality.

Selection of Research Studies

The research literature in the field of child maltreatment is immense—over 2000 items are included in the panel's research bibliography, a portion of which is referenced in this report. Despite this quantity of literature, researchers generally agree that the quality of research on child maltreatment is relatively weak in comparison to health and social science research studies in areas such as family systems and child development. Only a few prospective studies of child maltreatment have been undertaken, and most studies rely on the use of clinical samples (which may exclude important segments of the research population) or adult memories. Both types of samples are problematic and can produce biased results. Clinical samples may not be representative of all cases of child maltreatment. For example, we know from epidemiologic studies of disease of cases that were derived from hospital records that, unless the phenomenon of interest always comes to a service provider for treatment, there exist undetected and untreated cases in the general population that are often quite different from those who have sought treatment. Similarly, when studies rely on adult memories of childhood experiences, recall bias is always an issue. Longitudinal studies are quite rare, and some studies that are described as longitudinal actually consist of hybrid designs followed over time.

To ensure some measure of quality, the panel relied largely on studies that had been published in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. More rigorous scientific criteria (such as the use of appropriate theory and methodology in the conduct of the study) were considered by the panel, but were not adopted because little of the existing work would meet such selection

criteria. Given the early stage of development of this field of research, the panel believes that even weak studies contain some useful information, especially when they suggest clinical insights, a new perspective, or a point of departure from commonly held assumptions. Thus, the report draws out issues based on clinical studies or studies that lack sufficient control samples, but the panel refrains from drawing inferences based on this literature.

The panel believes that future research reviews of the child maltreatment literature would benefit from the identification of explicit criteria that could guide the selection of exemplary research studies, such as the following:

For the most part, only a few studies will score well in each of the above categories. It becomes problematic, therefore, to rate the value of studies which may score high in one category but not in others.

The panel has relied primarily on studies conducted in the past decade, since earlier research work may not meet contemporary standards of methodological rigor. However, citations to earlier studies are included in this report where they are thought to be particularly useful and when research investigators provided careful assessments and analysis of issues such as definition, interrelationships of various types of abuse, and the social context of child maltreatment.

A Comparison With Other Fields of Family and Child Research

A comparison with the field of studies on family functioning may illustrate another point about the status of the studies on child maltreatment. The literature on normal family functioning or socialization effects differs in many respects from the literature on child abuse and neglect. Family sociology research has a coherent body of literature and reasonable consensus about what constitutes high-quality parenting in middle-class, predominantly White populations. Family functioning studies have focused predominantly on large, nonclinical populations, exploring styles of parenting and parenting practices that generate different kinds and levels of competence, mental health, and character in children. Studies of family functioning have tended to follow cohorts of subjects over long periods to identify the effects of variations in childrearing practices and patterns on children's

competence and adjustment that are not a function of social class and circumstances.

By contrast, the vast and burgeoning literature on child abuse and neglect is applied research concerned largely with the adverse effects of personal and social pathology on children. The research is often derived from very small samples selected by clinicians and case workers. Research is generally cross-sectional, and almost without exception the samples use impoverished families characterized by multiple problems, including substance abuse, unemployment, transient housing, and so forth. Until recently, researchers demonstrated little regard for incorporating appropriate ethnic and cultural variables in comparison and control groups. In the past decade, significant improvements have occurred in the development of child maltreatment research, but key problems remain in the area of definitions, study designs, and the use of instrumentation.

As the nature of research on child abuse and neglect has evolved over time, scientists and practitioners have likewise changed. The psychopathologic model of child maltreatment has been expanded to include models that stress the interactions of individual, family, neighborhood, and larger social systems. The role of ethnic and cultural issues are acquiring an emerging importance in formulating parent-child and family-community relationships. Earlier simplistic conceptionalizations of perpetrator-victim relationships are evolving into multiple-focus research projects that examine antecedents in family histories, current situational relationships, ecological and neighborhood issues, and interactional qualities of relationships between parent-child and offender-victim. In addition, emphases in treatment, social service, and legal programs combine aspects of both law enforcement and therapy, reflecting an international trend away from punishment, toward assistance, for families in trouble.

Charge To The Panel

The commissioner of the Administration for Children, Youth, and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services requested that the National Academy of Sciences convene a study panel to undertake a comprehensive examination of the theoretical and pragmatic research needs in the area of child maltreatment. The Panel on Research on Child Abuse and Neglect was asked specifically to:

The report resulting from this study provides recommendations for allocating existing research funds and also suggests funding mechanisms and topic areas to which new resources could be allocated or enhanced resources could be redirected. By focusing this report on research priorities and the needs of the research community, the panel's efforts were distinguished from related activities, such as the reports of the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, which concentrate on the policy issues in the field of child maltreatment.

The request for recommendations for research priorities recognizes that existing studies on child maltreatment require careful evaluation to improve the evolution of the field and to build appropriate levels of human and financial resources for these complex research problems. Through this review, the panel has examined the strengths and weaknesses of past research and identified areas of knowledge that represent the greatest promise for advancing understanding of, and dealing more effectively with, the problem of child maltreatment.

In conducting this review, the panel has recognized the special status of studies of child maltreatment. The experience of child abuse or neglect from any perspective, including victim, perpetrator, professional, or witness, elicits strong emotions that may distort the design, interpretation, or support of empirical studies. The role of the media in dramatizing selected cases of child maltreatment has increased public awareness, but it has also produced a climate in which scientific objectivity may be sacrificed in the name of urgency or humane service. Many concerned citizens, legislators, child advocates, and others think we already know enough to address the root causes of child maltreatment. Critical evaluations of treatment and prevention services are not supported due to both a lack of funding and a lack of appreciation for the role that scientific analysis can play in improving the quality of existing services and identifying new opportunities for interventions. The existing research base is small in volume and spread over a wide variety of topics. The contrast between the importance of the problem and the difficulty of approaching it has encouraged the panel to proceed carefully, thoroughly distinguishing suppositions from facts when they appear.

Research on child maltreatment is at a crossroads—we are now in a position to merge this research field with others to incorporate multiple perspectives, broaden research samples, and focus on fundamental issues that have the potential to strengthen, reform, or replace existing public policy and social programs. We have arrived at a point where we can

recognize the complex interplay of forces in the origins and consequences of child abuse and neglect. We also recognize the limitations of our knowledge about the effects of different forms of social interventions (e.g., home visitations, foster care, family treatment programs) for changing the developmental pathways of abuse victims and their families.

The Importance Of A Child-Oriented Framework

The field of child maltreatment studies has often divided research into the types of child maltreatment under consideration (such as physical and sexual abuse, child neglect, and emotional maltreatment). Within each category, researchers and practitioners have examined underlying causes or etiology, consequences, forms of treatment or other interventions, and prevention programs. Each category has developed its own typology and framework of reference terms, and researchers within each category often publish in separate journals and attend separate professional meetings.

Over a decade ago, the National Research Council Committee on Child Development Research and Public Policy published a report titled Services for Children: An Agenda for Research (1981). Commenting on the development of various government services for children, the report noted that observations of children's needs were increasingly distorted by the "unmanageably complex, expensive, and confusing" categorical service structure that had produced fragmented and sometimes contradictory programs to address child health and nutrition requirements (p. 15-16). The committee concluded that the actual experiences of children and their families in different segments of society and the conditions of their homes, neighborhoods, and communities needed more systematic study. The report further noted that we need to learn more about who are the important people in children's lives, including parents, siblings, extended family, friends, and caretakers outside the family, and what these people do for children, when, and where.

These same conclusions can be applied to studies of child maltreatment. Our panel considered, but did not endorse, a framework that would emphasize differences in the categories of child abuse or neglect. We also considered a framework that would highlight differences in the current system of detecting, investigating, or responding to child maltreatment. In contrast to conceptualizing this report in terms of categories of maltreatment or responses of the social system to child maltreatment, the panel presents a child-oriented research agenda that emphasizes the importance of knowing more about the backgrounds and experiences of developing children and their families, within a broader social context that includes their friends, neighborhoods, and communities. This framework stresses the importance of knowing more about the qualitative differences between children who suffer episodic experiences of abuse or neglect and those for whom mal-

treatment is a chronic part of their lives. And this approach highlights the need to know more about circumstances that affect the consequences, and therefore the treatment, of child maltreatment, especially circumstances that may be affected by family, cultural, or ethnic factors that often remain hidden in small, isolated studies.

An Ecological Developmental Perspective

The panel has adopted an ecological developmental perspective to examine factors in the child, family, or society that can exacerbate or mitigate the incidence and destructive consequences of child maltreatment. In the panel's view, this perspective reflects the understanding that development is a process involving transactions between the growing child and the social environment or ecology in which development takes place. Positive and negative factors merit attention in shaping a research agenda on child maltreatment. We have adopted a perspective that recognizes that dysfunctional families are often part of a dysfunctional environment.

The relevance of child maltreatment research to child development studies and other research fields is only now being examined. New methodologies and new theories of child maltreatment that incorporate a developmental perspective can provide opportunities for researchers to consider the interaction of multiple factors, rather than focusing on single causes or short-term effects. What is required is the mobilization of new structures of support and resources to concentrate research efforts on significant areas that offer the greatest promise of improving our understanding of, and our responses to, child abuse and neglect.

Our report extends beyond what is, to what could be, in a society that fosters healthy development in children and families. We cannot simply build a research agenda for the existing social system; we need to develop one that independently challenges the system to adapt to new perspectives, new insights, and new discoveries.

The fundamental theme of the report is the recognition that research efforts to address child maltreatment should be enhanced and incorporated into a long-term plan to improve the quality of children's lives and the lives of their families. By placing maltreatment within the framework of healthy development, for example, we can identify unique sources of intervention for infants, preschool children, school-age children, and adolescents.

Each stage of development presents challenges that must be resolved in order for a child to achieve productive forms of thinking, perceiving, and behaving as an adult. The special needs of a newborn infant significantly differ from those of a toddler or preschool child. Children in the early years of elementary school have different skills and distinct experiential levels from those of preadolescent years. Adolescent boys and girls demon-

strate a range of awkward and exploratory behaviors as they acquire basic social skills necessary to move forward into adult life. Most important, developmental research has identified the significant influences of family, schools, peers, neighborhoods, and the broader society in supporting or constricting child development.

Understanding the phenomenon of child abuse and neglect within a developmental perspective poses special challenges. As noted earlier, research literature on child abuse and neglect is generally organized by the category or type of maltreatment; integrated efforts have not yet been achieved. For example, research has not yet compared and contrasted the causes of physical and sexual abuse of a preschool child or the differences between emotional maltreatment of toddlers and adolescents, although all these examples fall within the domain of child maltreatment. A broader conceptual framework for research will elicit data that can facilitate such comparative analyses.

By placing research in the framework of factors that foster healthy development, the ecological developmental perspective can enhance understanding of the research agenda for child abuse and neglect. The developmental perspective can improve the quality of treatment and prevention programs, which often focus on particular groups, such as young mothers who demonstrate risk factors for abuse of newborns, or sexual offenders who molest children. There has been little effort to cut across the categorical lines established within these studies to understand points of convergence or divergence in studies on child abuse and neglect.

The ecological developmental perspective can also improve our understanding of the consequences of child abuse and neglect, which may occur with increased or diminished intensity over a developmental cycle, or in different settings such as the family or the school. Initial effects may be easily identified and addressed if the abuse is detected early in the child's development, and medical and psychological services are available for the victim and the family. Undetected incidents, or childhood experiences discovered later in adult life, require different forms of treatment and intervention. In many cases, incidents of abuse and neglect may go undetected and unreported, yet the child victim may display aggression, delinquency, substance addiction, or other problem behaviors that stimulate responses within the social system.

Finally, an ecological developmental perspective can enhance intervention and prevention programs by identifying different requirements and potential effects for different age groups. Children at separate stages of their developmental cycle have special coping mechanisms that present barriers to—and opportunities for—the treatment and prevention of child abuse and neglect. Intervention programs need to consider the extent to which children may have already experienced some form of maltreatment in order to

evaluate successful outcomes. In addition, the perspective facilitates evaluation of which settings are the most promising locus for interventions.

Previous Reports

A series of national reports associated with the health and welfare of children have been published in the past decade, many of which have identified the issue of child abuse and neglect as one that deserves sustained attention and creative programmatic solutions. In their 1991 report, Beyond Rhetoric , the National Commission on Children noted that the fragmentation of social services has resulted in the nation's children being served on the basis of their most obvious condition or problem rather than being served on the basis of multiple needs. Although the needs of these children are often the same and are often broader than the mission of any single agency emotionally disturbed children are often served by the mental health system, delinquent children by the juvenile justice system, and abused or neglected children by the protective services system (National Commission on Children, 1991). In their report, the commission called for the protection of abused and neglected children through more comprehensive child protective services, with a strong emphasis on efforts to keep children with their families or to provide permanent placement for those removed from their homes.

In setting health goals for the year 2000, the Public Health Service recognized the problem of child maltreatment and recommended improvements in reporting and diagnostic services, and prevention and educational interventions (U.S. Public Health Service, 1990). For example, the report, Health People 2000 , described the four types of child maltreatment and recommended that the rising incidence (identified as 25.2 per 1,000 in 1986) should be reversed to less than 25.2 in the year 2000. These public health targets are stated as reversing increasing trends rather than achieving specific reductions because of difficulties in obtaining valid and reliable measures of child maltreatment. The report also included recommendations to expand the implementation of state level review systems for unexplained child deaths, and to increase the number of states in which at least 50 percent of children who are victims of physical or sexual abuse receive appropriate treatment and follow-up evaluations as a means of breaking the intergenerational cycle of abuse.

The U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect issued reports in 1990 and 1991 which include national policy and research recommendations. The 1991 report presented a range of research options for action, highlighting the following priorities (U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, 1991:110-113):

This report differs from those described above because its primary focus is on establishing a research agenda for the field of studies on child abuse and neglect. In contrast to the mandate of the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, the panel was not asked to prepare policy recommendations for federal and state governments in developing child maltreatment legislation and programs. The panel is clearly aware of the need for services for abused and neglected children and of the difficult policy issues that must be considered by the Congress, the federal government, the states, and municipal governments in responding to the distress of children and families in crisis. The charge to this panel was to design a research agenda that would foster the development of scientific knowledge that would provide fundamental insights into the causes, identification, incidence, consequences, treatment, and prevention of child maltreatment. This knowledge can enable public and private officials to execute their responsibilities more effectively, more equitably, and more compassionately and empower families and communities to resolve their problems and conflicts in a manner that strengthens their internal resources and reduces the need for external interventions.

Report Overview

Early studies on child abuse and neglect evolved from a medical or pathogenic model, and research focused on specific contributing factors or causal sources within the individual offender to be discovered, addressed, and prevented. With the development of research on child maltreatment over the past several decades, however, the complexity of the phenomena encompassed by the terms child abuse and neglect or child maltreatment has become apparent. Clinical studies that began with small sample sizes and weak methodological designs have gradually evolved into larger and longer-term projects with hundreds of research subjects and sound instrumentation.

Although the pathogenic model remains popular among the general public in explaining the sources of child maltreatment, it is limited by its primary focus on risk and protective factors within the individual. Research investigators now recognize that individual behaviors are often influenced by factors in the family, community, and society as a whole. Elements from these systems are now being integrated into more complex theories that analyze the roles of interacting risk and protective factors to explain and understand the phenomena associated with child maltreatment.

In the past, research on child abuse and neglect has developed within a categorical framework that classifies the research by the type of maltreatment typically as reported in administrative records. Although the quality of research within different categories of child abuse and neglect is uneven and problems of definitions, data collection, and study design continue to characterize much research in this field, the panel concluded that enough progress has been achieved to integrate the four categories of maltreatment into a child-oriented framework that could analyze the similarities and differences of research findings. Rather than encouraging the continuation of a categorical approach that would separate research on physical or sexual abuse, for example, the panel sought to develop for research sponsors and the research community a set of priorities that would foster the integration of scientific findings, encourage the development of comparative analyses, and also distinguish key research themes in such areas as identification, incidence, etiology, prevention, consequences, and treatment. This approach recognizes the need for the construction of collaborative, long-term efforts between public and private research sponsors and research investigators to strengthen the knowledge base, to integrate studies that have evolved for different types of child maltreatment, and eventually to reduce the problem of child maltreatment. This approach also highlights the connections that need to be made between research on the causes and the prevention of child maltreatment, for the more we learn about the origins of child abuse and neglect, the more effective we can be in seeking to prevent it. In the same manner, the report emphasises the connections that need to be made between research on the consequences and treatment of child maltreatment, for knowledge about the effects of child abuse and neglect can guide the development of interventions to address these effects.

In constructing this report, the panel has considered eight broad areas: Identification and definitions of child abuse and neglect (Chapter 2) Incidence: The scope of the problem (Chapter 3) Etiology of child maltreatment (Chapter 4) Prevention of child maltreatment (Chapter 5) Consequences of child maltreatment (Chapter 6) Treatment of child maltreatment (Chapter 7)

Human resources, instrumentation, and research infrastructure (Chapter 8) Ethical and legal issue in child maltreatment research (Chapter 9)

Each chapter includes key research recommendations within the topic under review. The final chapter of the report (Chapter 10) establishes a framework of research priorities derived by the panel from these recommendations. The four main categories identified within this framework—research on the nature and scope of child maltreatment; research on the origins and consequences of child maltreatment; research on the strengths and limitations of existing interventions; and the need for a science policy for child maltreatment research—provide the priorities that the panel has selected as the most important to address in the decade ahead.

1. The panel received an anecdotal report, for example, that one federal research agency systematically changed titles of its research awards over a decade ago, replacing phrases such as child abuse with references to maternal and child health care, after political sensitivities developed regarding the appropriateness of its research program in this area.

Bell, D.A. 1992 Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism . New York: Basic Books.

Children's Defense Fund 1991 The State of America's Children . Washington, DC: The Children's Defense Fund.

Daro, D. 1988 Confronting Child Abuse: Research for Effective Program Design . New York: The Free Press, Macmillan. Cited in the General Accounting Office, 1992. Child Abuse: Prevention Programs Need Greater Emphasis. GAO/HRD-92-99.

Daro, D., and K. McCurdy 1991 Current Trends in Child Abuse Reporting and Fatalities: The Results of the 1990 Annual Fifty State Survey . Chicago: National Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse.

Fuchs, V.R., and D.M. Reklis 1992 America's children: Economic perspectives and policy options. Science 255:41-46.

General Accounting Office 1991 Child Abuse Prevention: Status of the Challenge Grant Program . May. GAO:HRD91-95. Washington, DC.

Huston, A.C., ed. 1991 Children in Poverty: Child Development and Public Policy . New York: Cambridge University Press.

Kempe, C.H., F.N. Silverman, B. Steele, W. Droegemueller, and H.R. Silver 1962 The battered child syndrome. Journal of the American Medical Association 181(1): 17-24.

McClain, P.W., J.J. Sacks, R.G. Froehlke, and B.G. Ewigman 1993 Estimates of fatal child abuse and neglect, United States, 1979 through 1988. Pediatrics 91(2):338-343.

National Commission on Children 1991 Beyond Rhetoric: A New American Agenda for Children and Families . Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

National Research Council 1981 Services for Children: An Agenda for Research . Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect 1990 Child Abuse and Neglect: Critical First Steps in Response to a National Emergency . August. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. August. 1991 Creating Caring Communities . September. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

U.S. Public Health Service 1990 Violent and abusive behavior. Pp. 226-247 (Chapter 7) in Healthy People 2000 Report . Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The tragedy of child abuse and neglect is in the forefront of public attention. Yet, without a conceptual framework, research in this area has been highly fragmented. Understanding the broad dimensions of this crisis has suffered as a result.

This new volume provides a comprehensive, integrated, child-oriented research agenda for the nation. The committee presents an overview of three major areas:

• Definitions and scope —exploring standardized classifications, analysis of incidence and prevalence trends, and more.
• Etiology, consequences, treatment, and prevention —analyzing relationships between cause and effect, reviewing prevention research with a unique systems approach, looking at short- and long-term consequences of abuse, and evaluating interventions.
• Infrastructure and ethics —including a review of current research efforts, ways to strengthen human resources and research tools, and guidance on sensitive ethical and legal issues.

This volume will be useful to organizations involved in research, social service agencies, child advocacy groups, and researchers.

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Essay on Child Abuse

Students are often asked to write an essay on Child Abuse in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Child Abuse

Understanding child abuse.

Child abuse refers to harmful actions against children. It can be physical, emotional, or sexual in nature. It’s a serious issue that affects many children worldwide.

Types of Child Abuse

Physical abuse involves causing physical harm. Emotional abuse includes actions that harm a child’s mental well-being. Sexual abuse involves sexual exploitation.

The Impact of Child Abuse

Child abuse can lead to serious problems, like mental health issues and difficulty in social interactions. It’s important to protect children from such harm.

Preventing Child Abuse

Everyone can help prevent child abuse. If you see signs of abuse, it’s crucial to report it to authorities. Education and awareness are key.

250 Words Essay on Child Abuse

Introduction.

Child abuse, a grave societal issue, is an act that inflicts physical, sexual, or emotional harm or neglect upon children. This pervasive problem transcends geographical boundaries, socio-economic statuses, and cultures, having long-term detrimental effects on the individual’s life and society.

Child abuse manifests in various forms: physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect. Physical abuse involves deliberate actions causing injuries or harm to a child, while sexual abuse pertains to any sexual activity involving a child. Emotional abuse is the continual emotional mistreatment, and neglect is the consistent failure to meet a child’s basic needs.

Consequences of Child Abuse

The impact of child abuse is profound and long-lasting. Victims often experience cognitive difficulties, emotional instability, and behavioral issues. The psychological trauma can lead to mental health disorders, substance abuse, and even suicide in severe cases.

Prevention and Intervention

Preventing child abuse requires collective societal effort. It involves improving parenting skills, providing family support, and increasing public awareness. Intervention strategies include therapy, counseling, and legal action. Schools and communities play a crucial role in identifying and reporting suspected abuse.

In conclusion, child abuse is a pressing issue that requires immediate attention. Understanding its forms and consequences is the first step towards prevention. Society’s collective effort is crucial in creating a safe environment for children, thus ensuring their healthy development and well-being.

500 Words Essay on Child Abuse

Introduction to child abuse, the different forms of child abuse.

Child abuse manifests in various forms, each with its profound impact on a child’s mental and physical development. Physical abuse involves the deliberate use of force against a child, leading to potential bodily harm. Sexual abuse encompasses any sexual activity involving a child, where they are incapable of giving informed consent. Emotional abuse involves persistent negative behavior towards a child, such as belittling, humiliation, or rejection. Lastly, neglect is the failure to provide for a child’s basic needs, including food, shelter, education, and medical care.

Impact of Child Abuse

Child abuse has devastating consequences on the victims, their families, and society at large. Abused children often suffer from physical injuries, psychological disorders, and impaired social development. They may experience difficulties in school, struggle with interpersonal relationships, and are at a higher risk of developing mental health issues, such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Moreover, the cycle of abuse often continues into adulthood, with victims more likely to become perpetrators themselves.

The Role of Society and Institutions

Conclusion: towards a safer future for children.

Child abuse is a pervasive issue that demands urgent attention and action. It is essential to foster a culture of respect and protection for children’s rights, where every child can grow up in a safe and nurturing environment. This involves a collective effort from individuals, communities, and governments to recognize, address, and prevent child abuse. By doing so, we can break the cycle of abuse and pave the way for a safer, healthier future for our children.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

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How to Write an Essay about Child Abuse

Academic writing

Essay paper writing

Child abuse has become a big problem for our society, and even though we try our best to fight this vice, it still exists. If you want to make a change and help prevent child abuse, you can write a child abuse essay. In this paper, you can highlight all the problems that kids face in school and home as well as provide some possible solutions to this issue. It’s okay if you don’t know how to do that — this article will tell you how to write a research paper on child abuse. First of all, let’s look at some statistical information, which may appear rather shocking.

Child abuse statistical data essay

In order to write an essay that will impress your audience, you should collect some substantial data and approach this matter seriously. Here is some information that might help you write a decent essay on child abuse in America or any other essay.

The United States has been fighting against crime for a long time, and child abuse was not an exception. Unfortunately, the fight still continues. Over the past ten years, 20,000 children in the US were killed in their homes by their families. There has also been an increase in child deaths from 1,580 to 1,670, but some reports claim that the numbers are even higher. Five children die every day because of abuse, and early 60,000 children are sexually abused. Looking at these figures, you probably realize why there are so many argumentative essay topics about child abuse.

There are awful consequences of child abuse and neglect that keep following the victims for their whole lives if there are no actions taken. So it’s time to open our eyes to see how much these kids suffer. You have a perfect opportunity to use this information in your definition essay on child abuse and call your audience to action. Moreover, here are some more shocking figures:

• 36% percent of women and 14% of men in prison in the United States, as well as more than 60% of patients in drug rehabilitation centers, were victims of abuse as children.
• Kids that suffered from child abuse and neglect are nine times more likely to become criminals or be involved in criminal activities.
• Child abuse victims are at a very high risk of suffering repeated abuse and neglect, and the current national standard for recurrence is 94.6%.
• More than 80% of young adults that were abused as children had later suffered from psychological diseases. That’s an important fact for your emotional effects of child abuse essay.
• 30% of abused and neglected children will later abuse their own children.
• Abused children are 25% more likely to experience teen pregnancy while also being at a higher risk of STDs.
• Child abuse exists on all socio-economic and cultural levels — not only children from low-income families suffer from it.
• The younger child is, the more vulnerable he or she is. 49% of children who die from abuse are under one year.
• Child neglect, regarding race or ethnicity, most commonly takes place in White (44.8%), African-American (21.9%), and Hispanic (21.4%) families.

If you are still thinking whether you should write a child abuse by maid essay or not, don’t hesitate — this topic definitely deserves your attention.

Abuse and bullying

Bullying affects children considerably. Here are some disturbing facts about child bullying, which you can include in your infographic essay on child abuse:

• Children who become bullies by the age of 8 are more likely to have a criminal record by the age of 30.
• Around 30% of children in USA grades 5 through 12 are involved in bullying as victims, bullies, or both.
• 1 out of 4 kids experiences bullying.
• 43% of middle school students have threatened other students from their school.
• More than 160,000 students in the USA miss school because they are afraid of bullying.

If you feel like you could talk more about that topic, try writing an essay about child abuse and bullying . Who knows, maybe your essay can save someone’s life.

Introduction of child abuse research paper or essay

If you were assigned an important task to write an essay on child abuse, you need to take care of the introduction as it is an essential part that engages your potential readers. But before starting to write the actual paper, you have to choose one of child abuse topics for research paper. You can concentrate on one problem or depict the issue in general but in a specific country.

Next, you have to consider a good title for your essay. If you surf the Web and find child abuse essay examples, you will see that all of them have a catchy title. So you have to make up a heading which will be informative and intriguing at the same time. Later, you can go in detail in your child abuse essay outline.

The introduction part is important because it defines whether the text is interesting enough or not. Therefore, be ready to spend some time both on title and introduction, and you will see that your paper really stands out from other essays on child abuse.

By the way, it is quite important to know the difference between the regular essay and research paper. You have to be prudent about some aspects such as the structure, word choice, sources, and so on. For example, in a research paper on child abuse, you will have to provide more factual information and find only reliable scientific sources. Moreover, the tone of your writing has to be rather scientific. In the process of work on child abuse research, questions regarding the relevance of the sources may disturb you a lot. But don’t worry; you can always find them in databases such as Google Scholar or even visit your local library. Anyway, such a type of assignment is a great chance to show your analytical skills. In contrast, in essays on abuse, you have an opportunity to present your own ideas and opinions.

And after you defined what type of paper you need and chose a good title, it’s time to think about child abuse essay thesis, which is the key to success for your introduction. This is usually one or two sentences in which you are stating the main problem. Do not neglect this part of the work as a thesis statement is a good starting way for an essay on child abuse. The decent thesis should also be somehow catchy, so you can think about some intriguing hook to make it really engaging.   

Some more tips for your essay or research paper on child abuse and neglect

One of the most important tasks in the process of writing is the information search. First of all, it is probably better to get your information ready way ahead of the actual writing of your text. Moreover, due to the fact that it is not the easiest topic, you will need to spend a lot of time searching for really interesting and somehow shocking facts and statistics for your child neglect essay. Imagine you are reading the essay of your schoolmate. If he or she picks only boring or well-known facts, will you continue reading this paper? Definitely no. That is the right way to make the reader want to leave your article for some other text. This especially is true for some research on child abuse because that is the text where you have to provide tons of information, which can be easily found on the first pages of Google if you weren’t that diligent.

Some things to consider before writing the main part of the essays about child abuse

Of course, apart from content, you also need to take care of the structure of your paper. One of the most important aspects of each essay is transitions. Even if you are working on a child abuse short essay, you have to think of adding transition so that your essay will be easy to comprehend. Alright, after you are done writing this part of the text, you have to think what to write in the body of your essay.

The main part of essay on child abuse or how to write an argumentative essay on child abuse

This is going to be the most difficult part of the text for you because the topic is quite touchy and extensive. In this part, we are going to discuss how you can approach the body of your essay on abuse.

So, there are many ways to create an interesting main part for any of your emotional or physical abuse essays. But definitely the best one is to divide the body into smaller parts. The great thing about this division is that the reader will be free from having to read all of that monotonous text at once.

How to divide any research topic on child abuse

The first way to divide the main part is to compare the things in separate paragraphs. There are many different things to compare in your text, but there are some that are going to be way more interesting than the other ones. And to start the things off, we will talk about the child abuse vs discipline essay. In the first paragraph, you may tell what does it mean to have discipline at home and why it is important not to cross the line in this case. In the next paragraph, you may what exactly is child abuse. By comparing these two phenomena, you may come to the conclusion that too strict discipline may turn into child abuse and that parents have to be discreet while setting the rules. By the way, if you run out of child abuse research paper ideas, you may also work on the phenomena above.

The next topic you main touch upon in your domestic violence and child abuse essay is the manner of upbringing in different cultures and countries. The mentality of people in Western countries is so different from the mentality of those in other countries. Sometimes, people are mistreating the discipline teaching methods to be child abuse or domestic violence. Just a simple difference in the cultures might bring huge media controversy. This would be great to add in your analysis of child abuse essay.  

Adults are trying to do the best for their kids. They want their offspring to be the best at everything. However, some parents are not taught how to behave with their kids, and that brings up the problem of violence. In your factor of child abuse essay, you may write a famous proverb, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Parents who really wish all the best for their child will always find a way to treat their kids without resorting to violence.

How to write cause and effect essay child abuse

Writing such type of essay, you have to look at the causes of child abuse and violence in order to understand how their effects are appearing. So, let us look at the main causes of child abuse all over the world. To start the things of, it is important to talk about the parents who are not that good at parenting. For sure, that is not the reason to be violent with the kids, but in almost every child abuse persuasive essay, it is listed as one of the reasons for abuse. These parents have to understand that their kids will always remember the fear of constantly being punished. This cause is also one of the most popular to describe in the papers on this topic as many parents admit using an authoritative type of parenting, and some of them believe that this type of upbringing is not harmful for the kid. Unfortunately, in many cases, adults are not able to understand how much power they have. You may also write this idea in your effects of child abuse essay. Perhaps, some toxic parents who encounter your essay may start reflexing on their behavior.

Writing a research paper on child abuse

Working on research on child abuse and bullying, you may wonder how to start a research paper on child abuse. In this case, we would recommend you using some shocking statistics in order to highlight the gravity of the problem. In order to emphasize the issue even more, you have to remind that kids are way easier to affect, so the depression will surely be a thing that will hit them because of the violence. This would be a great thing to talk about in the outline for research paper on child abuse. Of course, it will require a lot of credible information, but trust us, this topic is really worthy of your attention.

If you are still looking for a topic on child abuse, then we offer you to choose physical child abuse research paper because there are many things to analyze in this phenomenon nowadays.

For your research paper, you will also need to find the reasons for abusive behavior. If you ask parents who are violent to their kids, they would probably say that this is a thing that they have experienced while they were the kids too. This is also a thing to talk about in research on child abuse and neglect. Such people usually do not talk about this topic so open, so it will be a huge achievement to get an interview with one of such parents.

How to stop child abuse essay

In this article, we have already discussed a lot of things, but here is something more. Child abuse is a problem that spreads around the globe, and it has to be stopped. We need to unite our forces to prevent child abuse and give a better life to kids. There are different ways to do that, and we will try to go over most of them. You can use these ideas to write your own way to prevent child abuse essay and also think about other methods to stop child abuse.

There are different ways to prevent abuse. And the first step you can take is to become a good parent if you have a child. Moreover, in your child abuse research paper, you can discuss how to prevent child abuse in a family.

If you know that your child is upset about something, try your best to support him or her. Not helping your child in stressful situations and not acknowledging their right to feel sad or angry can actually be abusive. If your child feels upset or lonely, try to comfort them instead of telling them to stop feeling that way. The truth is that there will be sad and happy moments for your kid, and you have to support them no matter what, even if you don’t want them to feel a certain way. If you are willing to talk about that topic more, write a separate child emotional abuse essay , where you can explain all of the signs of child emotional abuse.

If you are not a parent, you can still prevent child abuse in multiple ways. Here are some of them.

• Raise awareness about child abuse. Educate your community about what child abuse is and how many kids are in danger, even though many may not realize it. You could organize educational lectures at local schools and talk openly about this issue; in this case, you may even cite your how can the society eliminate child abuse essay.  
• Try to spread awareness in your circle of friends and relatives. For example, you may offer them to read your persuasive essay about child abuse . Awareness means advocacy, and when those who surround you become aware of child abuse and domestic violence, they become advocates as well as you do.
• Write a child abuse awareness essay if you are not that good at persuading. Contact politicians, journalists, writers, and non-profit organizations that could help bring attention to the issue of child abuse and neglect. You may also post information on websites, forums, social media or publish stories in online journals, magazines, or papers.
• Use multiple child abuse essay sources to write an informative essay that will get the attention of others. Any source will be great, so just try to inform as many people as possible.
• Provide resources for victims of child abuse and neglect. If you know someone who has suffered from child abuse, try to help them. You can donate some goods like food or clothes, support them through hard times, give them numbers of helplines of non-profit organizations that are trying to prevent any sort of abuse, find professional psychological help for them, etc.
• Report whenever you see any kind of abuse happening. You should clearly state in your prevention of child abuse essay that any incident of child abuse, child neglect, domestic violence, or any other crime has to be reported immediately without hesitation. Call the police, The National Domestic Abuse Hotline, or any other local law enforcement. Don’t try to solve the problem on your own — intervening might lead to even bigger danger. If you become a witness of such a situation, document everything you see, as well as time, date, location, abuser’s appearance, and other important details because there is a chance that the police will ask you to file a report.
• Organize a community or non-profit organization. It might seem like a hard thing to do, but only at first sight. There is a variety of options: you could create a school club, civic group, or a non-profit organization to fight child abuse. Talk to people from your community; maybe you will find those who share the same passion and could join you. Conduct a survey to find out which changes people want to see in your city. Non-profit organizations are making our world a better place for children, and describing those should be a big part of your solution of child abuse essay.
• Support children that have suffered from child abuse, neglect, and domestic violence. Sometimes a lack of support results in mental disorders like depression. It is important to help the victims of abuse, especially if they are children, because they are even more vulnerable to the negative effects of abuse. Of course, you should help everybody, no matter what their age is, but sometimes parents ignore the problems of their children and don’t provide any support. If you are writing causes of child abuse essay, mention this cause because kids’ need for help may often be ignored.
• Remind victims that everything that has happened to them is not their fault, and they should not blame themselves.

All of this information can be used for both children abuse essay and essay on elder abuse. This problem is also topical and requires our attention.

How to write sexual abuse research paper

Unfortunately, sexual abuse is still a terrifying part of our world, and every day, men, women, and children suffer from it. Writing an essay about sexual abuse, you will spread awareness about this topic, and more people will know how to deal with it; this is why you should consider working on an informative essay on child sexual abuse .

The first step is to learn as much as possible about sexual abuse and why it happens. Surf the Web and find articles that describe ways to prevent it. Find as many resources as possible to create a list of safety principles and general recommendations on how to prevent sexual abuse that you could share in your own essay.

There are many things to talk about in a sexual child abuse research paper, but the most important one is actually ways how to help sexual abuse victims. If someone who trusts you has shared his or her experience of sexual abuse, be there for them. Don’t judge the victim no matter what kind of situation they got in (by the way, this idea may be included in your argumentative essay about child abuse). Never blame the victim of sexual abuse, and don’t let them put the blame on themselves because it’s never their fault.

How to conclude an essay on child abuse

Many writers believe that crafting a conclusion is the easiest part of an essay — and that is a trap that authors fall into very fast. Conclusion for child abuse and neglect essay may not be the most important part of an essay, but still, it plays an essential role. There are a few steps you have to take before and while writing your ending, and we will explain how to do that. So here are the best tips for writing a really decent conclusion:

• Go back to the first paragraph and find any topics or themes that you have talked about. Sometimes authors forget to check their introduction and may get off the main topic in the end. Any essay on child abuse will be spoiled if your professor doesn’t see the unity of the ideas in your paper. Remember that you have to be consistent with your ideas and claims. For example, if you are writing solution of child abuse essay and start your essay with a proposition that says that there should be more policies that will improve children’s safety, go back to that idea and expand it by saying that this world should be a better and safer place for all of us, and to protect our children, we should start taking action in developing safety systems that will protect everyone.
• Try to keep your definition essay on child abuse conclusion as short as possible — 5-7 sentences at maximum. There is no need to write more or less; your reader may get bored reading a too long conclusion.
• Don’t forget about your thesis statement of your descriptive essay about child abuse . You should definitely include it in the conclusion. Reread your thesis statement for child abuse research paper and rewrite it for your ending.
• Leave your readers with a great impression. Your conclusion has to give your readers some food for thought. Make an appeal to readers’ emotions. It can be a great way to finish your abuse argumentative essay because sometimes essays and research papers are too serious and rational, and making an appeal to emotions will warm people’s hearts.
• Make a call to action. It is not an important thing to do, and it depends on th type of paper or essay. In order to make a great call to action, you have to be sure that your main arguments are strong enough. For example, if you are writing a problem solution essay on child abuse, suggest a way how to end child abuse and neglect.  
• If you asked a question in an introduction to get your readers hooked, you could restate the question once more and give an answer to it. Your readers will be curious to know the answer, so in order to find it, they will keep reading the essay. If you a wondering which questions are best to pick or if you have no ideas at all, read the essays of other students, and perhaps some questions on child abuse for an essay will inspire you. Think which questions fit your essay the best and try to answer them by yourself. If you still have no ideas, then you may surf the Web looking for the most relevant research question about child abuse that readers might find interesting to think over.
• End with a warning. There are many problems in our world, and sometimes people prefer just to ignore them. Child abuse is a serious problem, and if there is no action taken, it can grow bigger, and the aftermath of the issue will be thousands of broken lives.
• Suggest possible solutions. Talk about changes that will occur in the world if our society takes action. You can also write about what would happen if your suggested ways of solving the problem were used.

There are also many mistakes that authors tend to make when writing an essay conclusion. Here are some of them — try to remember and avoid these errors when writing your child abuse research paper:

• Not being confident. Using strong language means being sure of your ideas. You should sound somehow authoritative, and it means getting information for your research paper from reliable sources and believing in your writing. Never apologize for your ideas. Don’t say “I may not be an expert” or something similar — you may sound weak and unreliable.
• Just restating your main argument. This has been said before, but again, avoid repeating your thesis statement word to word — there will be no reasons for your audience to read a conclusion since it says what has been told already. Try to be original and creative, and your conclusion for child abuse essay will be truly interesting to read.
• Using too “smart” language. Using scientific terms in an essay about social issues will be okay if you are writing for a science journal or other scientific resource, but when it’s meant for the general public, it’s best to use simpler words. It does not mean that your essay should be simple — just don’t overload it with ‘fancy’ language. For example, if you are writing an essay on emotional domestic violence and child abuse, don’t bring up any psychological terms even though they might be connected to the topic. Substitute them with words that transfer the same meaning but are more common to everyone.
• Changing the tone of the paper. The tone should always be the same throughout your whole essay. For example, if you are working on a college essay on child abuse , make sure that you stick to the plan of an essay and follow the rules of writing a college essay. However, it is okay if you decide to be a little emotional in the end as the topic is quite touchy. And if you are writing a rhetorical essay, find out how to write a rhetorical essay on child abuse first because such type of essay presupposes using a certain tone.
• Not using proper transitional phrases. Using phrases like “In conclusion,” “To sum it up,” and “In summary” will definitely make your readers yawn. Instead, use phrases like “To review,” “It is clear,” “We can see that,” and others. Use your imagination!
• Stating new facts in the end. Finally, if you read more than one sample essay about child abuse, you have probably seen that the authors did not provide any new information in conclusion. That’s an important aspect to remember.

Writing a child abuse essay, expressing disgust is ok. Such a vice cannot be understood or accepted in a civilized society. Therefore, you can freely express your discontent in your conclusive part.

Final words for the best essay on child abuse

We hope that information in this article was useful. If you still need help with writing a child abuse rhetorical analysis essay or any other difficult type of paper, you can always ask experts from custom writing services for help. If everything is clear for you now, use all these tips to create a unique essay that will grab your readers’ attention. There are many child abuse topics for research paper , and it’s up to you what to write about because what really matters is your overall contribution to the theme. Just do not be afraid to make a difference! We do realize that child abuse essay writing is a challenging task to do. But if you really believe in yourself, you will achieve your writing goals!

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Essays on Child Abuse

Child abuse essay covers a topic that is brutal but needs to be written about. Criminal behavior poses a threat to society, and it's especially devastating when directed towards children. This painful subject is getting a lot of public attention in the past years, and writing child abuse essays are a way of shining light on this issue. While researching for your essay you will discover heartbreaking statistics – about 1 billion children were abused within the past year. The numbers and facts you will come across are unsettling. child abuse essay samples below will help you gather information for your essays and offer some guidelines when exploring this topic. Writing essays on child abuse is challenging in many ways, so it’s understandable if you need assistance, which we can provide you with.

This project aims to assess whether the primary schools in the UK implemented Eileen Munro’s Recommendations. It critically analyses the effectiveness of child protection in UK’s primary schools. The report advocates for review on child protection targets which enable both children and social workers a freedom to apply judgment as...

The discussion section elaborates the argument on whether any of Eileen Munro’s recommendations were implemented. To begin with, let us briefly review some of the endorsements. The Munro report changes the current child protection approach that is extremely rigid and incomprehensible because of the bureaucratic procedures that leave professionals glued...

Words: 1932

Putting up child protection ensures the safeguard of children from varying harmful activities that they are exposed to from their parents or the environment they live in. It is important to address issues that affect the children as a can severely impact the young ones both psychologically and also physically....

Words: 1200

Child Protection is a fundamental issue that has been addressed at various levels of governance. The United Kingdom is one of the many countries that are still grappling with how best to protect a child from any dangerous exposure. Prof Eileen Munro was tasked to come up with a report...

Words: 1648

Sexual assault is defined as an infringement of a person's sexual space by sexual touch without consent by coercion or physical force to engage in a sexual act against the person's will. It ranges from verbal sexual insults to the physical acts such as groping, rape, and sodomy and child...

Words: 1622

An Assessment of the Brothers` ACE Score and ACE that Might Indicate Future-Offending Behaviour ACE, also known as Adverse Childhood Experiences denotes to the stressful situations that young children encounter as they grow. The child can be either directly hurt through abuse or indirectly regarding the environment, which they are situated...

Words: 3789

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In today’s world, cases of child abuse are on the raising trend globally. It’s a matter of great concern when people close to the children; physically, emotionally or sexually abuse them. In most occasions, guardians who are mentally stable and highly conscious of their actions continually and methodically abuse their...

Words: 1410

Child abuse has become a severe social and public health problem and many studies have revealed the alarming number of child abuse cases all over the world. The diverging parenting norms and standards of different cultures has made it difficult to arrive at an agreement on the definition of child...

Words: 1081

The article Preventing Child Sexual Abuse, What Parents Know? analyzes the out parental information with regards to the prevention of child abuse in Saudi Arabia. The study begins with a definition of a sexual offense which is regarded as the engagement of a child in sexual activities without...

Words: 1113

Child Abuse and Neglect Child abuse is any action performed by a parent, guardian, or caregiver that cause serious physical, sexual or emotional harm to a child. On the other hand, child neglect refers to maltreatment of a child due to failure by parent, guardian or caregiver to provide needed care....

Words: 1643

It is universally agreed among scientist, sociologist, physiologist, criminologist and other interested scholars that youths in the adolescence stage are more likely to engage in antisocial behaviors.  However, numerous studies are concerned with activities that teens are more apt to participate in the adolescent stage such as substance abuse and...

Words: 1363

Over the years elderly mistreatment has been recognized as a social problem that has affected the society at large. The magnitude of the problem is uncertain but it is increasing in the United States and other countries in the world. Elderly abuse can be referred to as an intentional act...

Words: 1001

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Child abuse essay: writing tips from academic experts.

We’ve heard that more and more students are required by professors to write a child abuse essay. This may come as a surprise to you at first. People tend to avoid talking about this subject. It’s not only sad, but also terrifying. Writing a child abuse essay is definitely an emotional experience. Moreover, it’s an emotional experience for your readers as well. This means that you need to be very careful when writing such an academic paper.

It’s very easy to upset your readers or even your professor. Also, there are many other problems associated with writing your first child abuse essay. Your lack of experience I one of the problems, so let’s take a look at some of the things you need to avoid and some of the tips and tricks you can use to your advantage.

Why Write a Child Abuse Essay?

Writing an argumentative essay about child abuse is more difficult than writing about abortion . It’s not that the format of this essay is different from others. No. It’s the fact that the subject is very difficult for most people. During the research phase, you will have to read and analyze terrifying cases of child abuse. You will learn firsthand what child abuse looks like if you are to write an excellent child abuse argumentative essay. So, why would you want to write an essay on child abuse? Here are some of the reasons:

• You can write a persuasive essay on child abuse that encourages your readers and the community to take effective action to stop this behavior.
• You can write a child soldiers essay that discusses the moral and ethical issues of using children as soldiers on the battlefield.
• If you choose to write a children trafficking essay, you can raise awareness in your readers with clear examples and effective prevention measures.
• The child abuse essay can help you talk about your problems. You can use it to discuss your specific case.
• If you are unhappy with how you are being treated as a child, why not write a child rights essay? Ask for change, but remain objective and impartial throughout the paper.

The Difficulties of Writing an Argumentative Essay About Child Abuse

Yes, a child abuse persuasive essay is difficult to write. It is difficult to research and you may not like what you will find out. However, writing an essay on children or a parents children relationship essay is a great way to discuss a problem that is everywhere around us today. Because we know this subject is a very sensitive one, we need to give you some advice about the things to avoid:

• You are free to advocate for respect for children in your paper. However, don’t insult others and don’t exaggerate the issue.
• You can insert several quotes about children in your writing, but don’t overuse them. Your professor won’t appreciate an essay full of quotes and void of original content.
• Avoid comparing your financial situation to that of other children when writing a child poverty essay. It’s very easy to offend a large majority of your readers.
• Don’t promote illegal behavior or racial hate in your essay. Yes, certain parts of Africa are known to use child soldiers in battle. However, that doesn’t mean all African people are heartless or that African people don’t care about children. It’s simply not true.
• Try to avoid presenting positive aspects of child labor, especially when writing a child labour essay. There are no positive aspects to using underage, underpaid children to make a profit.

Best Tips and Tricks to Write an Essay on Child Abuse

Now that you have a clear idea what to steer clear of when writing a children essay, it’s time to show you some of the best tricks and tricks to write the perfect such essay:

• Don’t be afraid to write a child abuse and neglect essay about yourself. Feeling neglected is not something you should be ashamed of.
• Study the topic thoroughly and write an outline before you start writing the paper. Gather accurate data and information from reliable sources. And remember to list all your sources in the Bibliography section.
• Make sure you find an interesting topic and that you are actually able to find enough information about it to write the paper.
• It’s a very good idea to write a human rights essay with an emphasis on children.
• Remember to find the most important consequences of child abuse and to write about them.
• Being a bad parent doesn’t count as child neglect, so you need to be careful about this when writing a child neglect essay.
• If you need any help, don’t hesitate to reach out to a reliable writing company. A professional writer can quickly help you overcome a writer’s block.
• Even when the topic is emotional, remember to keep your writing unbiased, clear and concise. Your own personal feelings don’t usually have a place your academic papers.

Don’t Forget the Child Abuse Essay Examples

There is one more tips we’d like to share with you: don’t underestimate the importance of child abuse essay examples. You need to read at least one excellent example before you start writing your own essay. It will help you get a feel of how the final paper should look like. You’ll see how your can effectively structure your essay and how experienced writers present and support their findings and statements. Writing a child observation essay worthy of an A+ will be a piece of cake for you afterwards.

In conclusion, writing a child abuse essay doesn’t have to be difficult. Just stay focused and remember to avoid the dangers mentioned above. Of course, when writing a respect your children paper, you should take into consideration both sides of the argument. What do parents or professors have to say about children and their problems? Don’t hesitate to get a custom essay , when you realize you’re going to fail the deadline.

And remember, the five paragraph essay structure is the perfect choice for a child abuse essay. You just need a catchy introduction, three body paragraphs (each discussing a single important aspect), and a concise conclusion. You’ll surely appreciate how helpful this structure is for writing an academic paper. Good luck!

Essay on Child Abuse

Child abuse is any intentional harm or mistreatment of a child, including physical, sexual, emotional, and neglect. It can have serious consequences for a child’s physical and mental health, as well as their future development and relationships. Child abuse is a serious issue that affects a child’s well-being in many ways ( Steele et al., 2023). It can cause immediate and long-term harm to a child’s physical, emotional, and mental health. Some forms of child abuse, such as physical abuse, can result in physical injuries and long-term physical health problems. Sexual abuse can lead to emotional trauma, depression, and sexual health problems. Emotional abuse can cause low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. Neglect can result in malnutrition, developmental delays, and behavioral problems.

Moreover, the effects of child abuse can persist into adulthood and affect future relationships, career choices, and overall quality of life (Seddighi et al., 2021). Children who have experienced abuse are also at higher risk of engaging in self-destructive behavior and becoming involved in the criminal justice system. It is important to understand that child abuse can happen to any child, regardless of their background, and can occur in any setting. It is also important to note that child abuse is committed by strangers and people known to the child, such as family members, caretakers, or teachers. It is crucial that child abuse is recognized, reported, and addressed promptly to prevent further harm and promote the child’s well-being.

Reasons for child abuse can vary and include: Substance abuse by a parent or caregiver can lead to impulsive and violent behavior towards a child. Mental health issues: Mental health problems such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can increase the likelihood of child abuse. Poverty: Financial stress, unemployment, and lack of resources can lead to feelings of hopelessness and desperation, increasing the risk of child abuse. Family violence: Children who grow up in homes where violence is present are more likely to become victims of child abuse (Steele et al., 2023). Lack of knowledge and skills: Parents and caregivers who lack knowledge and skills on appropriate child-rearing practices are more likely to resort to physical or emotional abuse.

There are also cultural and societal factors that can contribute to child abuse. For example, in some cultures, physical punishment is accepted as a form of discipline, and this can increase the likelihood of physical abuse. Societal attitudes towards child-rearing, such as the belief that children should be seen and not heard, can also contribute to emotional abuse. Child abuse can also result from intergenerational cycles of abuse, where children who have been abused are more likely to abuse their children (Steele et al., 2023).

It is important to understand that child abuse is never the child’s fault and that abusive behavior is a choice made by the abuser or caregiver. Seeking help and support is crucial in breaking the cycle of abuse and promoting the child’s well-being. Support services such as counseling, support groups, and educational programs can help individuals overcome the reasons behind their abusive behavior and learn appropriate child-rearing practices (Christian et al., 2018).

Consequences of child abuse can include Physical health problems: Children who are physically abused may experience injuries, disabilities, and chronic health conditions. Mental health problems: Child abuse can lead to various mental health problems, including depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Difficulty in relationships: Children who have been abused may struggle to trust others and form healthy relationships in the future. Poor academic performance: Children abused are more likely to struggle in school and have lower educational attainment (Lines et al., 2023). Increased risk of criminal behavior: Children who have been abused are more likely to engage in criminal behavior and substance abuse later in life.

Society must recognize the signs of child abuse and take steps to prevent it. This can involve providing support and resources to families in need and increasing public awareness about the issue. Child abuse can have severe and long-lasting effects on children’s physical, emotional, and psychological well-being. Everyone must play a role in identifying and reporting child abuse cases (Seddighi et al., 2021). This can involve being aware of the signs of abuse, such as bruises, injuries, changes in behavior, and difficulty concentrating.

Individuals can also take steps to prevent abuse by volunteering with organizations that support families and children and by spreading awareness about the issue through conversations and social media. It is also important for schools, healthcare providers, and law enforcement to have proper training in recognizing and reporting abuse (Lines et al., 2023). Governments can play a role in providing funding for resources and services that can help prevent and respond to abuse. Addressing child abuse requires a comprehensive and collaborative approach that involves everyone in society. Working together can create a safer and more supportive environment for children to grow and thrive.

Some other consequences of child abuse can be: Impact on brain development: Child abuse can affect the normal development of a child’s brain, leading to cognitive and behavioral issues. Low self-esteem: Children who are abused often have low self-esteem and negative self-image, which can affect their ability to develop healthy relationships and lead fulfilling lives (Christian et al., 2018). Difficulty in forming attachments: Children who are abused may have trouble forming attachments to others and struggle to develop healthy relationships in adulthood. Risk of substance abuse: Children who have been abused are more likely to turn to drugs and alcohol to cope with their experiences. Victimization: Children who have been abused are more likely to become victims of abuse or violence later in life, in intimate relationships, or other areas of their lives.

Child abuse can devastate children, including physical injuries, emotional trauma, and long-term developmental problems. To prevent child abuse, it is important to understand the various forms it can take, including physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect. Preventing child abuse requires a multi-faceted approach that involves education, community support, and the provision of resources for families (Zeanah & Humphreys, 2018). This includes providing access to mental health services and support for parents struggling to provide for their children. It also involves educating the public about the signs of child abuse and the importance of reporting any suspected cases to the appropriate authorities.

Schools and community organizations can also play a role in preventing child abuse by promoting safe and supportive environments for children. This can include educational programs for children and parents on healthy relationships, consent, and boundaries. In addition, community leaders and policymakers can work to create laws and policies that protect children from abuse and provide support for victims and their families. This may include funding for child protective services, strengthening penalties for child abuse, and improving access to resources for families in need. Overall, preventing child abuse requires a collective effort from all members of society (Caron et al., 2020). Working together can create a safer and more supportive environment for children and help break the cycle of violence.

Caron, F., Plancq, M. C., Tourneux., P., Gouron, R., & Klein, C. (2020). Was child abuse under-detected during the COVID-19 lockdown? Archives de pédiatrie, 27(7), 399-400.

Christian, C. W., Levin, A. V., ABUSE, C. O. C., Flaherty, E. G., Sirotnak, A. P., Budzak, A. E., … & Suh, D. W. (2018). The eye examination in the evaluation of child abuse. Pediatrics, 142(2).

Lines, L. E., Kakyo, T. A., Hutton, A., Mwashala, W. W., & Grant, J. M. (2023). How are responses to child abuse and neglect conceptualized in Australian policy? Children and Youth Services Review, 145, 106794.

Saini, S. M., Hoffmann, C. R., Pantelis, C., Everall, I. P., & Bousman, C. A. (2019). A systematic review and critical appraisal of child abuse measurement instruments. Psychiatry Research, pp. 272, 106–113.

Seddighi, H., Salmani, I., Javadi, M. H., & Seddighi, S. (2021). Child abuse in natural disasters and conflicts: A systematic review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 22(1), 176-185.

Steele, B., Neelakantan, L., Jochim, J., Davies, L. M., Boyes, M., Franchino-Olsen, H., … & Meinck, F. (2023). Measuring violence against children: a COSMIN systematic review of the psychometric and administrative properties of adult retrospective self-report instruments on child abuse and neglect. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 15248380221145912.

Zeanah, C. H., & Humphreys, K. L. (2018). Child abuse and neglect. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 57(9), 637–644.

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Child Abuse and Neglect

This essay will provide an in-depth look at child abuse and neglect. It will discuss the various forms of abuse, indicators of neglect, the long-term consequences for children, and strategies for intervention and prevention. Moreover, at PapersOwl, there are additional free essay samples connected to Abuse.

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English Composition Final Proposal Essay: Child Abuse and Neglect

There have been countless studies focused around how the mind of a child is warped when transitioning into their adulthood after experiencing neglect and abuse. It’s evidently very difficult for a victim of this certain issue to forget their traumatic experiences, ultimately impacting their physiological and physical health. Child abuse and neglect refer to any harmful behavior by caregivers, parents, legal guardians, and other adults that is outside the norms of conduct and entails substantial risk of causing physical or emotional harm to a child or young adult(Australian Institute of Family Studies, 2014).

Child abuse can include physical, sexual, or emotional maltreatment, and it’s deeply painful to hear that at least one in four children have experienced this(Violence Prevention, 2018). An estimated number of 676,000 children were confirmed by child protective services as being victims of abuse and neglect in 2016(Violence Prevention 2018), and this number seems to be growing exponentially year by year. Within these children, 74.8% were neglected, 18.2% were physically abused, 8.5% were sexually abused, and 6.9% were psychologically maltreated(Child Abuse Statistics).

The effects child abuse has on children and young adults seem to vary by each individual, some experience less trauma while others go through deep pain and a long time of recovery. The factors that may come into how an individual may react to child abuse or neglect include, the frequency of such maltreatment or how long this treatment lasted for a certain individual, the type of maltreatment(physical, sexual, or emotional), and the relationship between the child and perpetuator(Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2013). Researchers also have started to investigate on how the resilience of each victim varies. Resilience is not an inherent trait in children but results from a mixture of both risk and protective factors that cause a child’s positive or negative reaction to adverse experiences(Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2013). Positive factors, such as high self esteem and intelligence contribute to a victim’s resilience.

Research suggests that the types of maltreatment are interrelated, in which a large portion of those who experience child abuse or neglect are exposed to multiple types of abuse: multi-type maltreatment(Australian Institute of Family Studies, 2014). There have been studies to show that certain acts like bullying, may occur to those experiencing multi-type maltreatment more frequently than those who are not. Additionally, those who experience multi-type maltreatment are likely to be exposed to high levels of trauma and worse outcomes, than those exposed to no maltreatment or one type of maltreatment(Australian Institute of Family Studies, 2014).

In addition to high levels of trauma caused by multi-type maltreatment, other psychological consequences of general child abuse include difficulties during infancy, poor mental and emotional health, cognitive, and social difficulties. Experiencing such trauma at a very young age could definitely contribute to depression, anxiety, personality or other psychiatric disorders later on in the young adulthood. To be more specific, a study showed that roughly 54% of cases of depression and 58% of suicide attempts in women were connected to adverse childhood experiences(Felitti, V.J., & Anda, R., 2009).

Child abuse and maltreatment can also affect the victims’ mental and emotional health, since it negatively influences their development of emotion regulation, which is a process that continues throughout their adulthood. Regarding social and cognitive difficulties, children are more likely to grow antisocial traits as they mature, and neglect also influences personality disorders and inappropriate behavior(Perry, 2012).

Along with psychological consequences of child abuse come physical consequences. Some of these include abusive head trauma, impaired brain development, and poor physical health(Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2013). Firstly, abusive head trauma is caused by injuries such as damage to the neck and spinal cord; they also usually are not immediately noticeable. Injuries such as these that lead to abusive head trauma can affect the development of the brain. Secondly, impaired brain development refers to the failure of the brain to grow properly. This can ultimately lead to consequences such as academic disabilities and mental health disorders(Tarullo, 2012). Lastly regarding poor physical health, studies have shown that victims of child maltreatment are very likely to suffer from heart conditions later on in their lives(Felitti & Anda, 2009).

It seems that the physical health type correlates to the maltreatment type of the victim. For instance, a study showed that children who experienced neglect were at risk for diabetes and malnutrition(Widom, Czaja, Bentley, & Johnson, 2012). Although the physical and psychological sides carry heavy and negative consequences, there are also behavioral consequences that contribute to the outcome of child abuse and neglect. Some of these include alcohol and drug abuse, juvenile delinquency and adult criminality, difficulties during adolescence, and abusive behavior. It is common knowledge at this point that there is always new research reflecting on the significant increase of child abuse or neglect victims abusing drugs or alcohol in their lives.

Specifically, child abuse and neglect victims are more than 4,000% likely to use drugs later in their lives(Felitti & Anda, 2009). Additionally, there is a correlation between child abuse or neglect and criminality, according to many studies. One study showed that children who have experienced child abuse or neglect are nine times more likely to be involved in criminal activities(Gold, Wolan Sullivan, & Lewis, 2011). Regarding difficulties during adolescence, many studies have shown that victims of child abuse or neglect are more likely to engage in sexual risk-taking as they become adults, ultimately increasing their likelihood of contracting a sexually transmitted disease(Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2013).

According to another study, these victims are also are at a higher risk for rape in their adulthood, and the rate of risk increases depending on the severity of the sexual experiences(Felitti & Anda, 2009). Finally, abusive behavior is one of the most impactful behavioral consequences. For instance, a study showed that girls who have experienced childhood physical abuse were one to seven percent more likely to become perpetrators of youth violence(Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2013).

To prevent child abuse and neglect there are potential solutions to help make this come to an end, along with past actions that were taken to solve this issue. In the past, the Federal Government made an investment in research on child abuse and neglect and its consequences. Some of these include the ACE Study, LONGSCAN, and NSCAW(Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2013). Firstly, the ACE study, short for Adverse Childhood Experiences, is the largest ongoing examination of the correlation between childhood maltreatment and adult health. Their data is collected through participants that volunteer for health screenings, ultimately providing information about childhood experiences, regarding abuse and neglect(Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2013). Next, the LONGSCAN, short for Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect, consists of researchers who examine the impact of maltreatment of victims and also evaluates the effectiveness of child protection(Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2013).

Finally, NSCAW, short for National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being, is a project in which survey data are collected from reports of children and parents, and continues to gather other data about measures of child well-being. Then, this data ultimately provides an understanding of outcomes for children and their families involved with child welfare(Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2013). Along with these research investments, the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline (1-800-422-4453) has been available, staffed with professional counselors who can offer resource and service for those in need(Child Abuse Prevention, 2018). In the past, in attempt to see the end of child abuse, every state and the District of Columbia enacted laws regarding the referral of suspected cases of child abuse or neglect to a public agency.

In addition to this, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act in 1974 authorized Federal funds to improve State responses to child abuse(Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2017). In 1966, The Children’s bureau within the Administration on Children, Youth and Families, explored the causes of child maltreatment and attempted to find prevention for it. They had home visitation programs, to educate parents and help them bond with their children(Child Welfare Information Gateway, 2017). There were several programs to seek to end child abuse and neglect, but evidently enough, none of them seem to have worked.

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Committee on Child Maltreatment Research, Policy, and Practice for the Next Decade: Phase II; Board on Children, Youth, and Families; Committee on Law and Justice; Institute of Medicine; National Research Council; Petersen AC, Joseph J, Feit M, editors. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2014 Mar 25.

New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research.

• Hardcopy Version at National Academies Press

1 Introduction

The 1993 National Research Council (NRC) report Understanding Child Abuse and Neglect notes that “Child maltreatment is a devastating social problem in American society” ( NRC, 1993 , p. 1). The committee responsible for the present report, armed with research findings gleaned during the past 20 years, regards child abuse and neglect not just as a social problem but as a serious public health issue. Researchers have found that child abuse and neglect affects not only children but also the adults they become. Its effects cascade throughout the life course, with costly consequences for individuals, families, and society. These effects are seen in all aspects of human functioning, including physical and mental health, as well as important areas such as education, work, and social relationships. Furthermore, rigorous examinations of risk and protective factors for child abuse and neglect at the individual, contextual, and macrosystem levels have led to more effective strategies for prevention and treatment.

This public health problem requires swift and effective action. The committee's deliberations led to recommendations for responding to the problem of child abuse and neglect while remaining realistic about the nature of feasible actions in these challenging political and economic times. The intent is to capitalize on existing opportunities whenever possible while advocating for new actions when they are needed.

The committee also believes that the existing body of research creates enormous opportunities for research going forward; the nation is poised to take full advantage of a developing science of child abuse and neglect. In particular, the results of studies of the consequences of child abuse and neglect, integrating biological with behavioral and social context research, as well as studies and controlled prevention trials that integrate basic findings with services research, now provide a solid base for moving forward with more sophisticated and systematic research designs to address important unanswered questions. New knowledge and better research tools can yield a better understanding of the causes of child abuse and neglect, as well as the most effective ways to prevent and treat it.

At the same time, however, the existing research and service system infrastructures are inadequate for taking full advantage of this new knowledge. The committee hopes that this gap will narrow as researchers in diverse domains collaborate to elucidate the underlying causes and consequences of child abuse and neglect, as those implementing promising interventions learn how best to take evidence-based models to scale with fidelity, and as policies are examined more rigorously for their ability to improve outcomes and create a coordinated and efficient system of care.

• THE 1993 REPORT

Two decades ago, the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services asked the National Academy of Sciences to conduct a study of research needs in the area of child abuse and neglect. That study resulted in the 1993 NRC report, which synthesizes the research on child abuse and neglect and, adopting a child-oriented developmental and ecological perspective, outlines 17 research priorities in an agenda that addresses 4 objectives:

clarify the nature and scope of child maltreatment;

provide an understanding of the origins and consequences of child maltreatment to improve the quality of future policy and program efforts;

provide empirical information about the strengths and limitations of existing interventions while guiding the development of more effective interventions; and

develop a science policy for child maltreatment research that recognizes the importance of national leadership, human and financial resources, instrumentation, and appropriate institutional arrangements.

• TRENDS SINCE 1993

Since the 1993 report, research on child abuse and neglect has expanded, and understanding of the consequences and other aspects of child abuse and neglect for the children involved, their families, and society has advanced significantly. During that same period, rates of reported physical and sexual abuse (but not neglect) have declined substantially, for reasons not fully understood. On the other hand, reports of psychological and emotional abuse have risen.

Child abuse and neglect nonetheless remains a pervasive, persistent, and pernicious problem in the United States. Each year more than 3 million referrals for child abuse and neglect are received that involve around 6 million children, although most of these reports are not substantiated. In fiscal year 2011, the latest year for which data are available, state child protective services agencies encountered 676,569 children, or about 9.1 of every 1,000 children, who were found to be victims of child abuse and neglect, including physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, and medical and other types of neglect. More than one-quarter had been victimized previously. Of these 676,569 children, 1,545 died as a result of the abuse or neglect they suffered—most younger than 4 years old ( ACF, 2012 ). Yet these figures are underestimates because of underreporting ( GAO, 2011 ). For example, the estimate of the rate of child abuse and neglect by caretakers in 2005-2006 derived from the most recent National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect, a sample survey, was 17.1 of every 1,000 children (totaling more than 1.25 million children), and many more were determined to be at risk ( Sedlak et al., 2010 ). This uncertainty as to the extent of child abuse and neglect hampers understanding of its causes and consequences, as well as effective prevention and treatment interventions.

Research conducted since 1993 has made clear that child abuse and neglect has much broader and longer-lasting effects than bruises and broken bones or other acute physical and psychological trauma. As noted above, child abuse and neglect can have long-term impacts on its victims, their families, and society. Children's experiences of these long-term consequences vary significantly, depending on the severity, chronicity, and timing of abuse or neglect, as well as the protective factors present in their lives. Nevertheless, abused and neglected children are more prone to experience mental health conditions such as posttraumatic stress disorder and depression, alcoholism and drug abuse, behavioral problems, criminal behavior and violence, certain chronic diseases, and diminished economic well-being.

Society is also affected. Each year, cases of abuse or neglect may impose a cumulative cost to society of $80.3 billion—$33.3 billion in direct costs (e.g., hospitalization, childhood mental health care costs, child welfare system costs, law enforcement costs) and $46.9 billion in indirect costs (e.g., special education, early intervention, adult homelessness, adult mental and physical health care, juvenile and adult criminal justice costs, lost work productivity) ( Gelles and Perlman, 2012 ). An analysis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the average lifetime cost of a case of nonfatal child abuse and neglect is $210,012 in 2010 dollars, most of this total ($144,360) due to loss of productivity but also encompassing the costs of child and adult health care, child welfare, criminal justice, and special education ( Fang et al., 2012 ). The average lifetime cost of a case of fatal child abuse and neglect is $1.27 million, due mainly to loss of productivity. These costs are comparable to those of other major health problems, such as stroke and type 2 diabetes, issues that garner far more research funding and public attention.

• THE CURRENT STUDY

In 2012, ACYF requested that the National Academies update the 1993 NRC report. ACYF asked that the updated report “provide recommendations for allocating existing research funds and also suggest funding mechanisms and topic areas to which new resources could be allocated or enhanced resources could be redirected.” Box 1-1 contains the complete statement of task for this study.

Statement of Task. Building on Phase 1, an ad hoc committee will conduct a full study that will culminate in an updated version of the 1993 NRC publication entitled Understanding Child Abuse and Neglect . Similar to the 1993 report, the updated report (more...)

• STUDY APPROACH

The Institute of Medicine of the National Academies appointed a committee with expertise in relevant areas—child development and pediatrics, psychology and psychiatry, social work and implementation science, sociology, and policy and legal studies—to conduct this study. The chair and one committee member had been the chair and a member, respectively, of the 1993 study committee, which provided for continuity. The committee commissioned a number of background papers that reviewed research results and research infrastructure needs in key areas of child abuse and neglect research. It held four face-to-face meetings, including two public sessions, as well as many whole-committee and subcommittee conference calls, to review the literature; discuss current understanding of the extent, causes, and consequences of child abuse and neglect, the effectiveness of intervention programs, and the impact of public policies; and discuss the draft report chapters and reach consensus on findings, conclusions, and recommendations.

In constructing the evidence base for this report, the committee looked back nearly 20 years to assess the state of research on child abuse and neglect. Doing so involved a conscious decision to privilege the peer-reviewed literature across a variety of disciplines (e.g., social-cultural science, developmental science, neuroscience, prevention and intervention science, epidemiology) and multiple dimensions of child abuse and neglect, including etiology, consequences, prevention, and intervention, as well as ethics, service delivery, and policy. The committee considered the most rigorous evidence drawn from a variety of study designs and methods, including mixed-methods, experimental, observational, prospective, retrospective, descriptive, longitudinal, epidemiological, meta-analysis, and cost-effectiveness studies.

The committee built on a literature review conducted as part of a workshop exploring major research advances since publication of the 1993 report ( IOM and NRC, 2012 ). That initial literature review yielded a brief updated summary of selected research literature, reports, and grey literature on the topics covered in the original report ( NRC, 1993 ). Relevant studies were selected through a search of several scientific databases and were augmented by additional research conducted by other agencies and organizations (see IOM and NRC, 2012 , for more detailed information).

The committee expanded on the 2012 literature review and critically examined publications derived from a literature database search, supplemented by the committee's knowledge of relevant work in the field. The review strategy began with a keyword search of electronic citation databases, followed by a review of the literature gleaned from published research syntheses, academic books, and peer-reviewed journals (i.e., Child Abuse and Neglect, Child Maltreatment, Children and Youth Services Review, Child Welfare, Protecting Children ); websites of research, nonprofit, and policy organizations (including evidence-based clearinghouses); professional conference proceedings; and other grey literature. Literature on child abuse and neglect in the United States was the primary focus; however, the committee also considered key studies from other countries. While the committee's approach did not represent a systematic review of the evidence, it did provide a body of research well suited to guide an understanding of critical issues and formulation of the recommendations presented in this report.

Definitions

As described in Chapter 2 , definitions of child abuse and neglect can vary considerably as legal definitions differ across states, and researchers apply diverse standards in determining whether abuse or neglect has occurred. A basic yet important definition of child abuse and neglect is contained in Section 3 of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) 1 :

At a minimum, any recent act or set of acts or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker, which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation, or an act or failure to act, which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.

While this federal definition sets a minimum standard for legal definitions, each state has developed its own definitions of child abuse and neglect. Child abuse and neglect are usually represented by four major categories: physical abuse, neglect, sexual abuse, and emotional (or psychological) abuse. Table 1-1 presents examples of acts that are considered to represent each of these four types of abuse and neglect, as compiled by the Child Welfare Information Gateway.

Examples of Acts of Child Abuse and Neglect.

The examples listed in Table 1-1 are drawn from state definitions of child abuse and neglect; however, they are not representative of any specific state. There is considerable variation across jurisdictions with regard to statutory descriptions of which acts constitute abuse or neglect. In addition, child abuse and neglect are defined in many contexts outside of legal and child protection system venues, research being the most notably germane to this report. Many studies identify cases of abuse and neglect through the use of survey instruments. Across these studies is found much variation in the types of questions asked of respondents and the types of responses that indicate instances of abuse or neglect. While some standards have been developed, definitions of child abuse and neglect in this context are often tailored to the needs of specific studies.

Given this definitional landscape, which is discussed further in Chapter 2 , the committee made two significant determinations with regard to definitions of child abuse and neglect for the purposes of this report. First, the scope of the discussion in this report is limited to actions (or inaction) of parents or caretakers, to the exclusion of extrafamilial abuse. This scope is reflective of the minimum definitional standard prescribed by CAPTA. Although individual jurisdictions may expand their definitions of abuse to include actions by extrafamilial parties, the CAPTA minimum standard is the most universally relevant to legal and child protection systems across the United States, as well as the data drawn from such sources for research purposes. Restricting the scope of this report to parent or caregiver actors also allowed the committee to conduct a more focused evaluation of the causes and consequences of abuse and neglect, as well as the delivery of prevention and treatment services, within the context of family and home. It is important to note that while this scope applies to the organization and content of the report, some of the studies discussed in the following chapters draw samples from jurisdictions that include instances of extrafamilial abuse in their definitions.

Second, the report does not specify a particular set of circumstances that would define whether or not an instance of child abuse or neglect has occurred. In addition to the need to review many studies that incorporate samples based on differing characterizations of acts of child abuse and neglect, there is insufficient evidence with which to determine the single most reliable, effective, and appropriate definitional approach. As studies are presented throughout the report, methodological limitations identified by the committee are described where applicable.

• RESEARCH ADVANCES IN CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT

As noted above, research conducted in the past 20 years has revealed child abuse and neglect to be a serious public health problem, but it has also revealed that rates of physical and sexual abuse of children (although not neglect) appear to have declined. Credited with the possible declines are some policy and practice reforms that include more aggressive prosecution of offenders, especially in the area of child sexual abuse; more effective treatment programs for victims of child abuse and neglect; and increased investments in prevention programs, especially for new parents. Yet contradictions and inconsistencies in the data demand more analysis.

Publications on child abuse and neglect increased more than threefold over the past two decades. Among the key areas seeing significant advances are (1) research on the consequences of child abuse and neglect, demonstrating that its effects are severe, long-lasting, and cumulative over adulthood; (2) research demonstrating effects on the brain and other biological systems, as well as on behavior and psychosocial outcomes; and (3) rigorous treatment and prevention research demonstrating the effectiveness of interventions.

Despite these advances, however, the research evidence also underscores how much remains unknown. More specific research designs and incorporation of core questions into studies examining factors that impact parental capacity and child development are needed to enable greater understanding and more effective prevention of child abuse and neglect. Also needed is a better understanding of the remarkable declines in reported child abuse, why children have differential sensitivity to abuse of similar severity, and how different types of abuse impact a child's developmental trajectory.

Needed as well are improved theories and research that can make it possible to disentangle the multiple causes and consequences of child abuse and neglect. The complexity of child abuse and neglect requires a systems approach, employing integrated, cross-disciplinary thinking, and research methods that can support better-specified model testing. Among specific improvements needed are refined theoretical models and research designs representing the relevant disciplines and ecological levels with appropriate specification of effects; multiple measures and methods for tracking core constructs, including neurological and other biological measures such as genetic and epigenetic factors; longitudinal research designs with which to assess the sequences of events that lead to abusive and neglectful behaviors and to identify treatment and prevention interventions that can protect against the intergenerational transfer of abuse and neglect; appropriate statistical analyses that differentiate effects at various ecological levels; appropriate statistical control to create more rigorous experimental opportunities when randomized controlled trials are infeasible for evaluating interventions; and designs that account for overlapping variance due to children's being nested within multiple layers of systems. Simpler designs and analyses can still play a role, especially when descriptive studies are needed to generate hypotheses. And essential for any study is clarity of the question being examined, preferably with a hypothesis that can be tested; the appropriate research design and statistical analysis can then be identified.

While some longitudinal studies on child abuse and neglect do exist, including the Longitudinal Studies in Child Abuse (LONGSCAN) and National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW), additional longitudinal, prospective studies are needed. An example of the kind of study required is the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which is following a cohort of nearly 5,000 children born in large U.S. cities between 1998 and 2000, with an oversample of 75 percent children born to unmarried parents (for further information, see www.fragilefamilies.princeton.edu ). This longitudinal study (now producing the sixth wave of data on children and their families 15 years after the original data collection) has examined many questions related to the nature of the sample, including child abuse and neglect (e.g., Guterman et al., 2009 ; Lee et al., 2008 ; Whitaker et al., 2007 ). The study employs embedded variables, such as children and parents within families, including all the variations that currently occur in families, and many types of data, from neighborhood characteristics to biological measures.

Importantly, this study serves as an example for the rigor of data analysis. A recent working paper by McLanahan and colleagues (2012) carefully reviews the literature on the causal effects of father absence to examine how study design impacts findings. The authors conclude that studies with more rigorous designs have found negative effects of father absence on child well-being, but with smaller effect sizes than have been found with standard cross-sectional designs. These conclusions demonstrate the importance of designing rigorous studies to examine complex questions such as those relating to child abuse and neglect. The Fragile Families study can provide a great deal of information on child abuse and neglect, and a similarly rigorous study designed to examine the many important questions concerning child abuse and neglect could do much more.

Both practice and policy research require similar improvements. Future research efforts need to address the impacts of service integration and the additive effects of conducting multiple interventions that simultaneously address the problem at the individual and community levels. While strengthening the response to child abuse and neglect will require continued rigorous prevention and treatment research on the efficacy of promising interventions, equally important is examining how such efforts can be replicated with quality and consistency. Finally, research is needed to understand the role and impacts of a more integrated, systemic response to child abuse and neglect with respect to participant outcomes and system performance. A better understanding also is needed of the utility and potential limitations of employing a singular focus on evidence-based decision making to guide policy and practice.

• A SYSTEMS FRAMEWORK FOR CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT

Research advances in child abuse and neglect make clear that attaining a better understanding of the problem and mounting an effective response will require a systems perspective (e.g., Senge and Sterman, 1992 ). The public health problem of child abuse and neglect encompasses many embedded systems that are engaged both positively and negatively in creating, sustaining, and responding to the problem. Such systems include individual development, family systems, social relationship systems, and service systems from the local to the national level, among others. All of these systems and factors within them involve complex interdependencies, such that efforts to solve one aspect of the problem may reveal or even create problems at other levels.

Systems thinking has been adopted in the child protection field both in the United States and globally (e.g., Wulczyn et al., 2010 ). As Wulczyn and colleagues note, the systems approach fits well with the major theoretical model in the field of child development—that of Bronfenbrenner (1979) . From any perspective, children can be considered in terms of the nested or embedded and interacting structures (e.g., families, communities) that affect them. Conversely, considering any child-related issue without taking such a perspective will be an incomplete exercise. From the perspective of the child protection system, all of the systems that work with children are highly entangled and must work in concert to achieve effective results ( Wulczyn et al., 2010 ). Figure 1-1 depicts the interplay among the actors, contexts, and components of child protection systems.

Child protection systems: actors, contexts, and components. SOURCE: Wulczyn et al., 2010 (reprinted with the permission of the paper authors).

Policy and program failures typically are considered to be system failures ( Petersen, 2006 ). They often involve a given system's establishing unsustainable ends or goals, or the use of approaches that fail to achieve the intended results and may have unintended consequences that may be worse than the initial problem. The common system failures (e.g., Senge and Sterman, 1992 ; Sterman, 2002 ) include misspecified ends, unintended consequences, drifting goals, underinvestment in capacity, and delays in delivering results.

An underlying problem that can contribute to all of these types of system failure is incomplete analysis of opportunities and challenges at the initial stage. To be effective, change efforts and the policies designed to sustain them must include a rigorous analysis of system dynamics. For example, the usefulness of systems analysis has been demonstrated in multiple successful applications to business challenges (e.g., Ford, 1990 ; Harris, 1999 ; Jones and Cooper, 1980 ), as well as in current efforts to apply systems analysis to the child protection system (e.g., Wulczyn et al., 2010 ). Systems analysis helps reveal mental models held by participants, including beliefs, assumptions, and presumed knowledge. This allows all participants in a change effort to recognize and take responsibility for their mental models and to account for them in the design of the change effort. In addition, systems analysis includes identification of potential barriers or challenges to implementation so that approaches to overcome them can be anticipated. Finally, the systems analysis approach views all solutions identified by the process as interim, systematically building feedback into the implementation of a change effort. By intentionally seeking, generating, and learning from feedback over time, participants in change efforts will improve their understanding of the system and efforts to improve it, and will see concomitant improvements in the efforts' results.

The complexity of child abuse and neglect makes the problem difficult to address in the absence of a full understanding of the diverse and multilevel systems that impact its incidence, consequences, and social response. By contrast, sustained and thoughtful systems thinking can lead to rigorous research designs that can advance knowledge and program or service implementation in meaningful ways. Such research can progress from addressing symptoms to focusing increasingly on core causes and solutions that draw more effectively on the strengths of multiple actors and domains.

Prevention of child abuse and neglect is a complex problem that can be solved only if many societal systems and the people within them cooperate to play positive roles ( Wulczyn et al., 2010 ). As with all complex societal problems, child abuse and neglect has no single cause; therefore, tackling the problem strategically at multiple levels is the only way to make a substantial impact on the problem.

• THE UNIQUE ROLE OF SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC STRATIFICATION

In the 1993 NRC report, issues concerning the influence of sociocultural factors on child abuse and neglect are addressed only marginally and, in truth, somewhat superficially. What is more, that report often implies that the racial and socioeconomic dimensions of abuse and neglect represent “cultural” effects. This misnomer distorts understanding of those social, economic, and cultural factors that influence the prevalence, mechanisms, processes, and outcomes of child abuse and neglect. The present report proposes several new conceptual and empirical directions for addressing these themes in future research on child abuse and neglect. Unfortunately, they are not well covered in existing research in the field, so the review of the literature presented herein generally is missing these perspectives.

The committee emphasizes the importance of adopting a critical stratification lens in considering and writing about the impact of social and economic factors on child abuse and neglect. Stratification involves the rank ordering of people based on their social and economic traits ( Keister and Southgate, 2012 ). Based on this rank ordering, people have unequal access to resources and are differentially exposed to certain behaviors, processes, and circumstances (e.g., discrimination) that influence the nature, power, vulnerability, privilege, and protection of children who are abused, those who abuse them, and those who are charged with preventing and intervening in abuse situations. This lens therefore makes it possible to consider the various domains of stratification—race, skin color, ethnicity, class (social and economic), gender, sexual orientation, immigration status—and how the inequalities that ensue because of rank ordering in these domains impact child abuse and neglect. In addition, this lens enables intersectionality to be infused into the discourse; thus, how the multiple strata occupied by an individual (e.g., a poor dark-skinned Latino female) collectively influence the lived experiences of child abuse and child neglect for all involved can be discussed and differentiated ( Burton et al., 2010 ; Dill and Zambrana, 2009 ). Finally, attention to stratification issues points to the need to consider how place matters relative to child abuse and neglect. Stratification processes create inequalities in physical and environmental locations that differentially shape certain behaviors and outcomes. Researchers in the field need to consider whether differences in the prevalence and nature of child abuse and neglect are observed in certain urban, suburban, rural, and regional areas of the United States and how those differences are related to population, institutional, and political inequalities.

Also important is avoiding the error of equating domains of stratification with the attributes and practices of culture. Culture is distinct from stratification. It is not necessarily circumscribed by the same mechanisms and processes as, for example, racial stratification; it encompasses but is larger than stratification issues. In Geertz's classic work The Interpretation of Culture , culture is defined as “an historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols, a system of inherited conceptions expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate, and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life” ( Geertz, 1973 , p. 89). And as Swidler notes, “seeing culture as meaning embodied in symbols focuses attention on such phenomena as beliefs, ritual practices, art forms, and ceremonies, and on informal cultural practices such as language gossip, stories, and rituals of daily life” ( Swidler, 2001 , p. 12). Thus, a fundamental component of culture is the social processes by which these symbols, attitudes, and modes of behavior are shared, reified, and sanctioned within families and communities. A focus on culture then directs attention to different types of questions, such as how certain religions and other collectives (not necessarily defined by race) value children, adopt harsh parenting styles, or execute certain moral codes/beliefs in the contexts in which they reside.

Attention to these issues will contribute to achieving the goal for research on child abuse and neglect of having sufficient specificity so that understanding of the problem's causes and consequences, as well as programs or services to address it, will be focused rather than overly general. Research conducted to date is informative about risk factors but not about how or why more risk factors lead to worse results, or which risk factors are more important than others and for which types of abuse or neglect. For example, poverty is a risk factor, yet many poor children are not abused or neglected. Which poor children are abused and why? The committee believes attention to these issues of social and economic stratification will yield increased understanding and more effective responses to the problem.

Significant progress has been made in efforts to understand child abuse and neglect; to document its devastating and lifelong impacts on both its victims and society; and to develop, test, and replicate evidence-based treatment and prevention strategies. Today, strong evidence demonstrates that child abuse and neglect is a public health issue in terms of both its immediate impact on child development and well-being and its impact on long-term productivity.

Research advances in child abuse and neglect underscore the importance of viewing the problem as a systemic challenge. The interdependency of myriad factors operating at multiple levels and in multiple domains complicates understanding of the causes and consequences of child abuse and neglect and challenges the ability to design, implement, and sustain effective responses. Building on the gains realized in the past 20 years will require a research paradigm and infrastructure capable of capturing this complexity.

• ORGANIZATION OF THE REPORT

This report is organized into nine chapters. Between this introductory chapter and the final chapter, which contains the committee's recommendations, are seven chapters that review the state of knowledge and contain the committee's findings and conclusions related to important aspects of child abuse and neglect research. In these chapters, major research findings are summarized at the end of major sections, and each chapter ends with overall conclusions. The aspects of child abuse and neglect addressed are the extent of the problem ( Chapter 2 ); research on its causes ( Chapter 3 ); research on its consequences ( Chapter 4 ); an overview of the child welfare system, which constitutes society's primary vehicle for identifying and responding to formal reports of child abuse and neglect ( Chapter 5 ); research on the implementation and impacts of prevention and treatment programs ( Chapter 6 ); an overview of the infrastructure for child abuse and neglect research ( Chapter 7 ); and research on relevant public policies ( Chapter 8 ). The recommendations presented in Chapter 9 are based on the findings and conclusions in these chapters, as well as the supporting discussion.

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• Cite this Page Committee on Child Maltreatment Research, Policy, and Practice for the Next Decade: Phase II; Board on Children, Youth, and Families; Committee on Law and Justice; Institute of Medicine; National Research Council; Petersen AC, Joseph J, Feit M, editors. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2014 Mar 25. 1, Introduction.
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Works Cited

“Abuse” is a popular word these days. The contemporary culture contains thousands of books, films, songs, photographs, and paintings raising awareness of the abuse of men, women, children and animals. Yet, nothing speaks louder than facts. Statistically, since 2003 approximately four to six thousands of cases of child abuse per year had been registered by the police in Wales and England.

The period from 2013 to 2014 turned out to be a peak of this activity as the number of registered child abuse cases over that time reached nearly eight thousand (Number of police recorded ‘cruelty to children/young persons’ in England and Wales from 2002/03 to 2013/14* par. 1). The purpose of this paper is to explore the history, and causes of child abuse as well as the legislation implemented to address its cases. The paper reveals shocking examples of child abuse from earlier times as well as present days and explores the ways the modern society employs to deal with this appalling practice that assumingly has been going on ever since the beginning of time.

Child abuse has a very long history. For generations, cruelty towards children had been viewed as an appropriate way to discipline them and teach valuable lessons. Uneven power relationships between adults and children have been practiced for centuries. The laws designed to protect children did not exist in the earlier society simply because child abuse had never been viewed as an issue. In fact, children were considered as parts of property of their fathers, which seems like a natural belief for a patriarchal society of the past.

During the Victorian Era the heavy exploitation of child labor had been a normal practice. Children from the poor families would start to be viewed as suppliers at the age of seven or eight. The occupations young children performed during the Victorian times included coal mining, pottery, farming, laundry, matchmaking, and sales. Children also were employed at textile mills, ship yards, and rail stations. They worked as servants, rat catchers, chimney sweepers, and prostitutes. Average work shifts of children could last twelve or even eighteen hours. It goes without saying that hard physical labor and absence of appropriate care resulted in multiple health problems and injuries, some of which led to early death of young workers.

The first laws regarding cruelty and abuse appeared in England after 1866 and initially were directed at the protection of animals, but eventually started to include children. In the late 1800s the British crown began to enforce the principle called parens patriae, which obliged the state to care about the weak and vulnerable groups of population including children. Since that time the attitude towards the issue of child abuse has been changing year after year in favour of child protection.

Today, the society is wiser and it practices upstream approach concerning the issue of child abuse. Along with handling its consequences, the experts of various fields are trying to identify and address its causes. The contemporary sociologists, psychologists and anthropologists are aware of a number of causes that compose the basis for child abuse.

Among the general causes that may lead people to their breaking point are emotional immaturity, psychological and financial issues, unrealistic expectations, depression, lack of experience and knowledge concerning parenting, and mental disorders. Normally, an abusive person has a combination of these risk factors, but some causes are much more popular than others.

The main factors leading to child abuse are drugs and domestic violence. A household where violent attitudes frequently occur between the spouses is an ultimate risk place for a child. Often, the outbreaks of rage and aggression in adults occur due to a number of frustrating factors such as unemployment, financial crisis, and difficult living conditions. When such outbreaks are heated up by an intoxication they tend to go out of control and affect everyone around. Young children are especially vulnerable in such situations.

One of the worst child abuse cases ever registered in Britain resulted in life imprisonment for a couple who starved and beat a young boy to death. The boy’s mother Magdelena Luczak aged 27 and her boyfriend Marius Krezolek aged 34 were arrested for systematic child abuse in a form of starving and physical violence (Couple jailed for life in one of Britain’s worst child abuse cases par. 1).

The adults captured in 2013 had been torturing the boy since 2011 locking him in a room without windows, withdrawing food from him and beating him up severely. After the situation turned fatal, the couple failed to report it within 33 hours. Both Madgalena and Marius were heavy alcohol and drug abusers with criminal background and inclination to violence. Unfortunately, a number of couples matching this description is large not only in Britain but all around the world, which puts their children in need for legal protection.

In legislation child abuse includes sexual, physical and emotional aspects. A child abuser is a parent or caretaker who fails to meet the most basic needs of a child including the need for food, home, and care adequate for the child’s age, who ignores the child’s need for health care, who cannot provide education a child requires, or who deprives a child of love and emotional support (Report child abuse par. 1).

One of the frequently discussed contemporary legal aspects of child abuse is a policy concerning obligatory report of a suspected abuse in the UK. Such policy is employed in the United States, but the British legislators have been reluctant about this issue. The abovementioned case of a young boy starved to death by his own mother and her boyfriend is a demonstration of the importance of mandatory report policy as the boy continued going to school while being starved and abused, but teachers, along with neighbors and friends of the boy failed to inform the police or child protection services about the problem.

The argument against the implementation of mandatory child abuse report is the fact that it may lead to fewer children receiving protection. The Home Secretary Theresa May is convinced that once such policy is implemented, organisations such as hospitals, schools and kindergartens would start feeling pressured to report all kinds of suspicions and file multiple false reports leading to confusion of law enforcement (Hope par. 8).

To conclude, Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) reports that in 2013 they have processed 18887 reports concerning suspected child abuse, provided protection to 790 children, sent out 2866 overseas reports about individuals suspected to be involved in child abuse, and captured 192 suspects (Annual Review 2012-2013 & Centre Plan 2013-2014 7).

Child abuse is not a new issue for our society, it has existed for centuries. Today, we are aware of the problem, its causes and outcomes. Hundreds of professionals are focused on identification and elimination of child abuse in the UK. A number of services are determined to work with individuals assisting the government in abuse prevention and child protection. Reporting suspected abuse is not mandatory, yet it is a moral obligation for everyone because picking up a phone and informing the professionals may save a life of a child.

Annual Review 2012-2013 & Centre Plan 2013-2014. CEOP . 2014. Web.

Couple jailed for life in one of Britain’s worst child abuse cases . ABC . 2013. Web.

Hope, Christopher. Mandatory reporting of child abuse could put more children at risk, warns Theresa May. 2014. Web.

Number of police recorded ‘cruelty to children/young persons’ in England and Wales from 2002/03 to 2013/14*. The Statistics Portal . 2014. Web.

Report child abuse . GOV.UK . 2014. Web.

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IvyPanda. (2020, July 1). Child Abuse: History and Causes. https://ivypanda.com/essays/child-abuse-history-and-causes/

"Child Abuse: History and Causes." IvyPanda , 1 July 2020, ivypanda.com/essays/child-abuse-history-and-causes/.

IvyPanda . (2020) 'Child Abuse: History and Causes'. 1 July.

IvyPanda . 2020. "Child Abuse: History and Causes." July 1, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/child-abuse-history-and-causes/.

1. IvyPanda . "Child Abuse: History and Causes." July 1, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/child-abuse-history-and-causes/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Child Abuse: History and Causes." July 1, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/child-abuse-history-and-causes/.

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