Child abuse and neglect is a contemporary social issue that is important to me because of my work as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) volunteer.
The systems theory “focuses upon aspects of relationships between people and their environments.” (Maguire, 2002, p. 43). When children are in an abusive or neglectful environment, it affects them mentally and physically. System theory interventions focus on encouraging understanding, adaptation, coping with the environment, and alleviating stress as well as recognizing the psychological harms of the immediate environment. System theory also puts an emphasis on restructuring support systems and “develop[ing] positive relationships with supportive individuals” (Maguire, 2002, p. 44). Since people are continually interactive with their environment, each different environment will affect the whole system.
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Interventions create awareness of social forces or factors such as “poverty, racism, sexism or homelessness” that are inhibiting a positive change. Treatment involves adaptation and coping skills along with attempting to “alleviate the effects of stress or enhance[ing] constructive responses.” (Maguire, 2002, p. 44). Creating an ecomap or genogram can help to explain the root cause of the abuse or neglect for the perpetrator or the victim, as well as creating a visual of the system dynamics. If the perpetrator grew up in an abusive or neglectful environment, the use of Cognitive Theory could be used to have a better understanding of why the individual is causing harm to the child/children. This theory focuses on how individuals develop and how they learn through their
CAPTA focuses on the issue of child abuse and neglect within the U.S. CAPTA was one of the first major federal policies put into effect to address the issue of child abuse and neglect in the U.S. Prior to the development of this act, information is very limited on how child abuse really affected the children in the U.S. Within the first year of CAPTA 60,000 reports of child abuse and neglect were made and within a few years, these numbers had made a large jump to over a million reports in 1980. In 1990, 2 million reports were made, and in 2000, reports were somewhere around 3 million (CAPTA Reauthorization, 2016). In 2005 alone out of every 1000 children 12 children from birth to 18 had experienced some abuse and neglect. The 2005 report stated that 62.8 percent were cases of neglect, 16.6 percent were cases of physical abuse, 9.3 percent were cases of sexual abuse, 7.1 percent were cases of emotional, 2 percent were cases of medical neglect or abuse, and 14.3 percent were other situations of neglect or abuse. Overall that year 1,460 deaths were reported from child abuse and neglect (Goldman & Salus, 2003). But in 2010, 698,000 reports were confirmed of abuse and neglect, which is a dramatic decrease due to the policies
Child abuse and neglect are “social” issues that were addressed by the author. While children are in foster care, they may become victims of maltreatment: child neglect, child emotional, physical and sexual abuse. The terms neglect refers to when parents fail to provide a child’s basic needs and provide satisfactory level of care (Downs, Moore and McFadden, 2009). An example of a child being neglected is when parents or c...
McCulloch, Lisa. "The California Child Abuse & Neglect Reporting Http://www.dominican.edu. Rady Children's Hospital, n.d. Web. 17 Apr. 2014.
Life in the United States has been difficult for many children. Statistically speaking, there are four children who are killed by abuse each day (Allyn & Bacon, 2011). With numbers increasing over the years change is something that is starting to take place. There are many things that will affect the child welfare system in the future, such as the economic policies, political views, and the current policies set in place (child welfare information). The reason for the child welfare system is to help the children who are getting abused. In the past, there was not a policy set in place; however, this is beginning to change. One of the systems that have been set in place is the Children’s Bureau, an organization that does studies on the mental health of abused children (Thomas, 2012). Although this organization has no authority to develop federal regulations, they are one of the largest agency leaders in child welfare (Thomas, 2012). There are many problems with the economy and government that make it hard to maintain the child welfare system.
Nothing remotely similar to this exists for child abuse and neglect” (p. 1). The 2001 federal fiscal year budget was $3.74 billion for the National Cancer Institute. Between all of CAPTA’s grants combined, the total monetary governmental support comes to approximately $72 million. While cancer research is an incredible thing, child abuse and neglect programs should be well funded in order to help more children. In addition to more children being helped, if funding for abuse awareness increased, there would possibly be more jobs open for social workers and other types of advocates.
Abuse of children has become a major social problem and a main cause of many people's suffering and personal problems. Neglect, physical abuse, and sexual abuse have an immediate and long-term effects on a child's development. The long-term effects of abuse and neglect of a child can be seen in psychiatric disorders, increased rates of substance abuse, and relationship difficulties. Child abuse and neglect is a huge problem. Parents who abuse are people who have been abused and neglected themselves as children(Long Term Consequences).
Parent-child intervention programs are another use for the theory. Children learn from experiences based on their home life. “Children’s strategies for managing emotions, resolving disputes, and engaging with others are learned from experience and carried forward across setting and time. For younger children especially, the primary source of these experiences is the parent–child and family relationship environment” (O’Connor, Matias, Futh, Tantam & Scott, 2013).Young children witness much of their learned behaviors from their parents. By intervening at an early age to help change some of the parents behaviors children will then learn new responses to situations. Children who are victims of domestic abuse can see videos or models portraying
Osofsky, J., & Lieberman, A. (2011). A call for intergrating a mental health perspective into systems of care for abused and neglected infants and young children. American Psychologist, 66(2), 120-128.
Poverty, addictions and mental health all contribute to this frightening social problem in the United States. Childhelp has a unique three step approach to helping end, as well as treat child abuse and neglect. First, programs exist to prevent the cycle of abuse. This is important because 30% of abused and neglected children will go on to be an abuser. Second, Childhelp has an intervention program that is dedicated to interceding and removing children from abusive and dangerous situations. Childhelp states that 80% or more of children who die from child abuse or neglect are younger than age five and therefore unable to remove themselves from living in danger. Lastly, Childhelp has a treatment program designed to give children a safe place to fall, with love, while equipping them with the tools needed to move forward from their hurtful pasts (Childhelp,
Child abuse in the United States is a growing epidemic. Every year the number of reported cases, and missing children go up. This is caused mostly by lack of education about the different types of child abuse, and the signs that go along with it. Communities need to provide more resources to better educate the public about the types of abuse, and the signs that go along with it. Child abuse and neglect can be lessened by more resources, more education and to reach out to others.
Child abuse and neglect is a very serious issue that can not be taken lightly. We need to provide continuing public education and professional training. Few people fail to report because they want children to suffer abuse and neglect. Likewise, few people make deliberately false reports. Most involve an honest desire to protect children coupled with confusion about what conditions are reportable. Educational efforts should emphasize the conditions that do not justify a report, as well as those that do.
If you think about it, it’s almost impossible to measure the force that it takes to dribble a basketball, unless you have the right tools. Let’s just think about the basic physics that you should know. In order to dribble a basketball you need to apply enough force for the ball to go from your hand to the floor and back up to your hand. When the ball is in your hand it is holding potential energy. Potential energy is the energy that is about to be transferred into kinetic energy, which is when the energy is in use. The ball is in kinetic energy after it leaves your hand and starts to fall. So the force of gravity has to be less than the force of the bounce to keep the dribbling going.
Child abuse in America is an ongoing problem and something needs to be done. There are approximately one million children abused annually in the United States. (Table 339) Cases of child abuse and neglect are reported every ten seconds, and researchers believe that there’s three times that amount that goes unnoticed. (Child Abuse: Know the Signs and Stop the Violence Against Children.) Something needs to be done for these children who are too weak and too powerless to help themselves.
Funding is awarded to support ongoing research programs to identify, prevent and treat child abuse and neglect and to collect and distribute data. Projects that are currently funded are Child Welfare Information Gateway website, the National Resource Center for Child Protective Services, National Quality Improvement Center on Differential Response, annual publication of Child Maltreatment and the initiative on Supporting Evidence-Based Home Visitation to Prevent Child Maltreatment.
Child abuse has become a chronic and common issue in the country today. In the United States of America, an estimated three million children are victims of abuse every year. Whether the abuse is physical, emotional, sexual, or neglect, the scars can be deep and can have a negative effect on a child’s education. According to academic research preformed at Brown University in April 1996, it was noted that abused children have a harder time maintaining good grades in school due to their stressful home lives, which leads to a lack of focus in the classroom. These issues are severely hurting the education of many children which damages their conscious development. Unstable households are the number one cause of children not performing at the level of proficiency in the classroom. (Family Mobility Helps) There are four different types of abuse, but the effects are similar, which is physical, or emotional harm placed upon the child. There are certain types of abuse that are often harder to identify. Neglect is the most common form of child abuse. Family members and caregivers are the abusers in most cases. Research has shown there are three major reasons why abuses children suffer academically. The reasons are withdrawal, poor communication/social skills, and behavioral problems. Child abuse does not only hurt a child’s education, but can lead to deaths. Therefore prevention is the key to the success of a child’s future. (Rynders)