Child Maltreatment
Every person has had the opportunity to experience childhood whether it was bad or good. For some, childhood may have been awesome without any worries and then there are those whose childhood experience has been nothing but stress and family hardship in which those families ended up turning to public intervention for help. This policy analysis will elaborate on child maltreatment, who is impacted by it, The effect of maltreatment, and how it interacts with other social problems.
Child maltreatment is a major social problem and it dates back from the 1700’s till the present date. It is divided into 4 categories which are sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect. Wissow defines child maltreatment as “an intentional harm or a threat of harm to a child by someone acting in a role of care taker”. Sexual abuse is the inappropriate touching of a child or viewing of explicit sexual material through an older person. Physical abuse is inflicting bodily injury by force. Emotional abuse is demeaning or overly distant behavior by parent that interferes with a child’s normal social or psychological development. Neglect which is considered to be the most life threatening is the failure of a parent to provide their child with shelter, food, support or medical care. Approximately 1.4 million U.S children under the age of 18 experience some form of maltreatment each year. At one point of time it was left up to the family as being held accountable for the caring of children, but as time evolved public intervention has began to step in if a family is considered to be incapable of care or a risk to a child’s well being. In connection to children and families, public intervention has been mandated and guided by social welfare policies so known as Child welfare policies. In the 1700’s when parents could not care for and support their children they sent them off to work in a factory or for other families. This was labeled as child labor. Religious groups and
Child maltreatment is a major social problem and it dates back from the 1700’s till the present date. It is divided into 4 categories which are sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect. Wissow defines child maltreatment as “an intentional harm or a threat of harm to a child by someone acting in a role of care taker”. Sexual abuse is the inappropriate touching of a child or viewing of explicit sexual material through an older person. Physical abuse is inflicting bodily injury by force. Emotional abuse is demeaning or overly distant behavior by parent that interferes with a child’s normal social or psychological development. Neglect which is considered to be the most life threatening is the failure of a parent to provide their child with shelter, food, support or medical care. Approximately 1.4 million U.S children under the age of 18 experience some form of maltreatment each year. At one point of time it was left up to the family as being held accountable for the caring of children, but as time evolved public intervention has began to step in if a family is considered to be incapable of care or a risk to a child’s well being. In connection to children and families, public intervention has been mandated and guided by social welfare policies so known as Child welfare policies. In the 1700’s when parents could not care for and support their children they sent them off to work in a factory or for other families. This was labeled as child labor. Religious groups and
References: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration on Children, Youth and Families. Child Maltreatment 2006. Washington, DC, U.S. Government Printing Office, 2008. Slack, K. S., Holl, J. L., McDaniel, M., Yoo, J., & Bolger, K. (2011). Understanding the Risks of Child Neglect. Child Maltreatment: A Collection of Readings, 182. Leventhal JM (2003). Child maltreatment: Neglect to abuse. In CD Rudolph et al., eds., Rudolph 's Pediatrics, 21st ed., pp. 463-469. New York: McGraw-Hill. Gilbert, R., Kemp, A., Thoburn, J., Sidebotham, P., Radford, L., Glaser, D., & MacMillan, H. L. (2009). Child Maltreatment 2 Recognising and responding to child maltreatment. The Lancet, 373(9658), 167-180. Currie, J., Widom, C. (2010) “Long-Term Consequences of Child Abuse and Neglect on Adult Economic Well-Being” vol. 15 no. 2 pg 111-120 Child Welfare information Gateway (2009) Child Witness to Domestic Violence: Summary of State laws (online) Wissow, Lawrence (1995) Child Abuse & neglect pg 1425 (online source)