NCJ Number
232429
Journal
Child Abuse & Neglect Volume: 34 Issue: 9 Dated: September 2010 Pages: 647-658
Date Published
September 2010
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This study analyzed the features, typologies, and co-occurrence of various types of neglect for 303 urban, ethnically diverse youth identified as maltreated in child welfare case records.
Abstract
The case records identified 41 percent of the maltreated youth as having been neglected; however, this study's more precise and comprehensive coding of neglect (care neglect, environmental neglect, medical neglect, educational neglect, and supervisory neglect) led to a classification of 71 percent of the youth as having been neglected. The most common type of neglect was supervisory neglect (72.5 percent of youth classified as neglected), followed by environmental neglect (61.6 percent). With the exception of medical neglect, all types of neglect correlated significantly with one another. The study concludes that children who are reported as neglected are likely to experience other forms of maltreatment. Clearly, neglect is pervasive among children in the child welfare system; however, official classifications for neglect underestimate its occurrence. Given this tendency to underestimate neglect among child welfare children, this study recommends that interventions for children and families not be based on official classifications in case records. Rather, interventions should be based on individualized, detailed assessments that enable interventions to address the complexities of maltreatment that include diverse forms of neglect. Researchers used the Maltreatment Case Record Abstraction Instrument (MCRAI), which is based on the work of Barnett et al. (1993) as modified by English and Longscan (1997). Thirteen items of parental behavior deemed neglectful were coded and organized into the five subtypes of neglect. 5 tables and 32 references