Child Abuse Review最新文献

Experiencing child sexual abuse is associated with increased risk for a range of short- and long-term negative effects. This short report defines and explores the annual incidence rates of child sexual abuse in the United States over 25 years between 1996 and 2021 (the most recent data released) and, comparatively, annual incidence rates of child maltreatment, more generally. A retrospective trend analysis of Child Maltreatment Reports, produced by the Department of Health and Human Services with data from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System, was conducted to compile and analyse rates of child sexual abuse and child maltreatment over time. In general, the rates of reported child maltreatment and child sexual abuse have declined, on average, since the 1990s. We, then, discuss these trends in connection with research documenting societal and family factors that may have contributed to these declines.

Rates of sudden unexpected death in infancy have been found to occur disproportionately amongst families living in the most deprived neighbourhoods. This suggests that standard safer sleep messaging may not be effective for this population and that research is required to identify ways of working that are better associated with behavioural change in parents with children at increased risk of SUDI. In this study, we aimed to explore the behavioural change components and mechanisms of action of safer sleep interventions for families with children at increased risk of SUDI. We conducted an analysis of the literature on safer sleep interventions using the COM-B model, Theoretical Domains Framework and Behavioural Change Technique Taxonomy. All interventions targeted parents' capability; 15 interventions targeted parents' opportunity; and six interventions targeted parents' motivation to engage in safer sleep practices. Nineteen behavioural change techniques were identified. The focus of practitioners may need to shift from solely the delivery of safer sleep information towards working with parents to understand their capability, opportunity and, in particular, motivation to engage in safer sleep practices, identified as being a key driver of behaviour in this population.

In recent years, Norwegian authorities have intensified their efforts to prevent and prosecute domestic violence while prioritising the protection of victims, with initiatives such as action plans, strategic measures and various programmes, with a particular focus on children. Despite increased awareness of violence towards children, a significant portion still goes unreported. Our study aims to examine patterns in disclosure attempts among Norwegian teenagers. We studied 11,615 teenagers from the Local Youth Survey between 2014 and 2016 who confirmed experiencing physical violence from an adult family member. Our findings indicate that, among those who did try to disclose, informal confidants like parents or friends, rather than school employees, were the preferred choices. When examining the factors that influence the likelihood of attempting to disclose, we observed that the frequency of violence played a significant role in explaining variation. The likelihood of attempting disclosure was also higher among girls and among those with a low socioeconomic background. Part of this pattern was confirmed also when studying the subgroup that had tried to disclose: the probability of attempting to tell a school employee was higher among those who had a low socioeconomic background and was exposed to violence more frequently. In this subgroup, however, no significant gender differences were observed.

Child sexual abuse within institutional settings has been a major concern for governments around the world for many years. Consequently, prevention policies have been developed, and institutional child abuse laws have been strengthened in many jurisdictions. Legislation is important to prevent reoffending, however, the majority of childhood sexual abuse remains unreported and undetected. While awareness of the failings of institutions to properly identify and respond to child abuse has grown in recent years, barriers to reporting institutional abuse remain understudied, impacting the ability to prevent abuse. One possible reason that prevents workers from identifying and reporting child sexual abuse is that their judgements are vulnerable to stereotypes and unconscious biases about who perpetrates and is victimised by sexual crimes and what constitutes warning signs of sexually abusive behaviours. Research in psychology provides key insights into human reasoning processes that can lead to bias, so workers fail to identify, respond and prevent grooming and child abuse in an organisational context. This paper reviews what is known about the development and maintenance of stereotypes and unconscious bias, their role in institutional sexual abuse, and concludes with a discussion of measures that can be taken to mitigate unconscious bias to prevent child abuse.

Though much is known about children's sexual abuse disclosure, less attention has been directed towards disclosure in other types of youthful victims, especially those who may be reluctant to tell due to either normative development or victims' specific experiences. Trafficked youth, particularly those who are adolescents, represent one such group. Understanding how suspected youth trafficking victims are questioned by authorities, especially with respect to establishing rapport and trust, is important for informing professionals how to effectively question this unique population of victims to overcome their reluctance. We examined transcripts of interviews conducted by federal interviewers (n = 12,653 question-answer turns across 33 interviews) and police (n = 4,972 question-answer turns across 14 interviews) with trafficked youth between the ages of 12 and 18. Interviews were reliably coded for the length of pre-substantive questioning, provision of instructions and ground rules, and use of rapport building and supportive strategies. Federal interviewers used pre-substantive instructions and built rapport with potential victims more often than police did. Also, and although infrequently used overall, supportive interviewing strategies were evident more often by federal interviewers than police. Results provide much-needed knowledge about how law enforcement investigators interview and elicit disclosures from vulnerable populations of adolescent victims.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has taken a strong stance against cyber child pornography by enacting new laws and implementing legal measures to prevent and punish offenders. This article examines the legal framework in the UAE related to cyber child pornography, with a particular focus on the new Federal Law No. 34 of 2021 on Combating Rumours and Cybercrimes, as well as Federal Law No. 3 of 2016 on Child Rights. Additionally, the paper explores the compatibility of the UAE's relevant laws with the Council of Europe (CoE) Convention on Cybercrime. This article highlights the significance of having laws in place to combat cyber child pornography and provides recommendations for further improvement in the UAE's response to these crimes.

Adolescents with chronic pain can at times present with disability out of proportion to diagnostic workup. This is also a defining feature of medical child abuse (MCA). The aim of this study was to identify themes from the clinical narratives of adolescents with chronic pain that may indicate concern for MCA. This qualitative, retrospective study at an academic children's hospital between 2011 and 2019 identified 37 adolescents aged 13–18 years old with chronic pain and varying levels of concern for MCA. Conventional, inductive content analysis was used to identify themes from the medical records of all patients, which were reviewed by an interdisciplinary panel of experts. Themes were organised into three tiers related to the level of concern for MCA: ‘Green zone’ themes including fatigue or sleep problems, psychosocial distress, and social withdrawal were common among all patients. ‘Yellow zone’ themes including fragmented care, caregiver catastrophising, caregiver misrepresentation, medical provider exasperation, and sick identity were more common among patients in whom medical providers raised concern for MCA. A single ‘red zone’ theme, reportable harm to the child, was only present in patients diagnosed by a child abuse paediatrician as having MCA. A visual display of the results is provided for further research and clinical application.

Burns are a common injury to young children, sometimes related to neglect or physical abuse. Emergency department (ED) clinicians, health visitors and social workers must work collaboratively when safeguarding children with burns; however, little is known about the factors influencing their professional judgements, decision-making and multidisciplinary collaboration. Objective was to explore factors affecting ED clinicians', health visitors' and social workers' professional judgements and decision-making when children present to the ED with burns, and experiences of multidisciplinary collaboration, to identify areas for improvement. This was a qualitative semi-structured interview study using purposive and snowball sampling to recruit participants. Data were analysed using ‘codebook’ thematic analysis. Four themes were identified: ‘perceived roles and responsibilities when safeguarding children with burn injuries’, ‘factors influencing judgment of risk and decision-making’, ‘information sharing’ and ‘barriers and facilitators to successful multidisciplinary collaboration’. There is limited understanding between the groups about each other's roles. Each agency is dependent on one another to understand the full picture; however, information sharing is lacking in detail and context and hindered by organisational and resource constraints. Formal opportunities for multiagency team working such as strategy meetings can be facilitators of more successful collaborations. Professionals may benefit from multiagency training to improve understanding of one another's roles. Greater detail and context are needed when notifying health visitors of burn injuries in children or making a referral to children's services.

There is growing recognition of the contextual dynamics of child sexual abuse, with a developing evidence base supporting it, sparking calls to ensure prevention efforts are contextualised. Contextual approaches extend the focus of prevention beyond the individual, to include immediate situations, and the physical and social contexts in which abuse occurs. Although academic and industry support for contextual approaches is gaining momentum, there is no consistent definition of contextual prevention nor operational clarity currently available to inform research, policy and practice. This contributes to a lack of policy guidance and practice consistency; also impeding much needed evaluation research, and likely slowing scholarly and practice uptake. In this article, we address this important gap. Based on a critical review of relevant literature, we propose a conceptual definition of contextual prevention and its operationalisation and provide a framework and guidance for policymakers and practitioners tasked with protecting children from child sexual abuse.

Child protection work requires professionals to manage the different perspectives regarding intervention aims and strategies associated with different personal, academic and organisational backgrounds. Parenting assessment is a determinant task for intervention and for children's future where universal or automatic criteria remain unavailable. This study aimed to explore and characterise the existing agreement (and disagreement) between child protection workers on statements related to judgements on parenting. A total of 325 Portuguese social workers participated in the study, mostly with a background in social work and psychology and more than six years of experience in child protection. Professionals were required to distribute 50 sentences in a scoring sheet (Q-sort methodology) with 11 points. The results were interpreted through the matrix of operationalisation of minimally adequate parenting. Three main answer strands revealed different focuses in sorts' configurations: the child, the procedures and the child's ecology. The clear difference between the factors could contribute to maintaining the child protection system as an adversarial one, and not as an effectively cooperative system. To promote team cohesiveness and intervention success, and to reinforce professionals' wellbeing and resilience, metacommunication on parenting assessment criteria is proposed as a determinant strategy.