NCJ Number
183749
Date Published
1997
Length
21 pages
Annotation
Because violence is not the exclusive province of some marginal parents but rather is part of society and culture, preventing and treating child abuse and neglect requires overcoming repressive and punitive attitudes not only in families but in the wider societal context.
Abstract
Professional controlling attitudes based on indifference and denial or on reporting and scandalizing should be thoroughly examined and not simply projected onto abusive parents. Professionals questioning the problem of family violence should also question their own violent or neglecting attitudes. Although excessive medicalization should not be encouraged, it is nonetheless a reality that most distressed parents turn to their private doctor or to a hospital-based service when they are concerned about their children's health or strange behavior. Doctors, pediatricians, psychiatrists, and social workers thus have to create places within their practices or hospitals where people who harm their children will not be afraid to come, where parents and children can talk about what happened, and where professionals will not react to them the way many abusive parents react to their children. Successful therapeutic responses to child abuse and neglect are possible if a new child protection model is offered, one based on empathy, trust, and encouragement for those who fail in raising their children instead of on traditional approaches involving mandatory reporting, control, judgment, and sanctions. The alternative child protection model should provide high-quality treatment instead of high-intensity control and offer more options of support for professionals. Difficulties facing professionals who deal with child abuse and neglect cases are noted, and the influence of socioeconomic and political contexts on child protection is assessed. 53 references