Paternal support for child sexual abuse victims: A qualitative study

BackgroundThe current state of knowledge regarding the role of non-offending fathers in supporting their sexually abused children is very scarce.ObjectiveThe objective of this study is to further our understanding of fathers’ roles following disclosure of their children’s sexual abuse (SA) by evaluating fathers’ perceptions of the impact of disclosure on their involvement and support of their children.Participants and methodThis qualitative study relies on individual semi-structured interviews conducted with 17 fathers of allegedly abused children.ResultsInductive thematic analysis first highlighted that some reported a period of disengagement from the child during which they put into question their role and attitudes, followed by a period of re-involvement. This period of difficulties experienced by some fathers in regard to their involvement towards their children was due to either their own important psychological distress, their ambivalence towards their child or even because of feelings of uneasiness experienced during physical contact with them. Despite this, findings indicate the presence of thoughts and attitudes that suggest children are a source of concern for fathers. The four forms of abuse-specific support previously observed among mothers (believing the child, seeking out professional services, protecting him/her from the offender, supporting him/her emotionally) were also observed among fathers. In accordance with the activation theory, a form of support specific to fathers, namely, encouraging the child to open up to and explore the world outside the family, thereby, fostering the child’s self-esteem development, was observed and constitutes a relevant finding.ConclusionClinical and empirical implications are discussed.     

“His body is human,but he has a tiracchāna heart”: An ethnographic study of the epigenesis of child abuse in Cambodia

In Cambodia, more than half of all children experience physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. This article examines how Cambodians view the causes and effects of child abuse and analyses its underlying cultural forces. Adopting a conceptual framework originally developed for the cultural context of violence against women, 110 cases of child abuse were ethnographically studied, comprising 61 cases of sexual abuse (50 girls and 11 boys), 26 cases of physical abuse (13 girls and 13 boys), and 23 cases of emotional abuse or neglect (13 girls and 10 boys). The perpetrators included fathers and other close relatives, lay Buddhist officiants and monks, and neighbors. Most informants viewed the sexual or physical abuse of children as stemming from “cultural attractors,” including blighted endowment caused by deeds in a previous life, a bad character starting early in life, astrological vulnerability to abuse, preordained entanglement between the child and the abuser (they are “fated” to meet), sexual craving, “entering the road to ruin,” and a moral blindness that portrays the abuser as blameless. Although these traits are similar to those identified in the explanations of violence against women, there were notable differences such as the role of the tiracchāna in explaining sexual abuse, including incest. Using these findings, this article identifies a cultural epigenesis of child sexual abuse, and provides a blueprint for developing a culturally responsive plan to prevent child abuse.     

Ongoing child welfare services: Understanding the relationship of worker and organizational characteristics to service provision

Ongoing child welfare services are put in place after completion of the initial maltreatment investigation when there is a perceived need to mitigate the risk of future harm. The knowledge of how clinical, worker, and organizational characteristics interact with this decision to provide ongoing child welfare services is not well integrated in the research literature. Using secondary data from the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect-2008, this study’s primary objective is to understand the relationship of clinical, worker, and organizational characteristics to the decision to transfer a case to ongoing child welfare services and their relative contribution to the transfer decision in Canada. Findings indicate that several clinical level variables are associated with families receiving ongoing services. Additionally, organizational factors, such as type of services offered by the organization and the number of employee support programs available to workers, significantly predicted the decision to transfer a case to ongoing services. While no worker factors, such as education, amount of training, experience, or caseload, were associated with ongoing service receipt, the intraclass correlation coefficient of the final three-level parsimonious model indicated substantial clustering at the worker level. Results indicate that Canadian child welfare workers make decisions differently based on factors not available in the current study and that what would be deemed as important worker characteristics do not necessarily predict this outcome. Findings and implications for future research are discussed.     

Association between psychosocial stressors with emotional and behavioral problems among children of low-income addicted families living in Brazil

BackgroundChildren exposed to substance use in their families are vulnerable to multiple risk factors in their development and at increased risk for emotional and behavioral problems. The aims of the study were as follows 1) estimate the prevalence of emotional and behavioral problems among children aged 6–11 years old, living with addicted family members in a low-income urban community of São Paulo, Southeastern Brazil; 2) evaluate the children’s exposure to family psychosocial stressors and substance use; and 3) investigate the factors related to the increased risk of emotional and behavioral problems and substance use.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted among 101 children aged 6–11 years old (M = 9.16 years, SD = 1.61). The instruments used were a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and the Psychosocial Stress Factors (PSF).ResultsHigh prevalence of problems was found for this sample: the CBCL showed 26.7% of clinical scores for Internalizing Problems, 40.6% for Externalizing Problems, and 40.6% for Total Problems. Exposure to family psychosocial stressors was also high, including severe disease (33%), physical aggression (28.9%), death (27.8%), psychiatric hospitalization (16.7%), suicide attempts (15.5%), and suicide (9.3%). Exposure to these family stressors was associated with an increase of two to four times in the prevalence of internalizing and externalizing problems.ConclusionsChildren exposed to substance abusers have more mental health problems than general population, even when compared to peers living in similar low-income areas. This is a group that should be target of a selective preventive intervention.     

Associations between individual and collective efficacy beliefs and students' bystander behavior

This study examined whether defending and passive bystanding during peer victimization episodes were associated with individual- and classroom-level efficacy to stop peer victimization. Self-report survey data were analyzed from 1,467 Swedish fourth-grade students (mean age = 10.55) from 100 classrooms in 63 schools. Multilevel analyses revealed that, when witnessing peer victimization, students more often defended victims if they were high in defender self-efficacy and if they belonged to classrooms high in collective efficacy. In contrast, students were more likely to remain passive if they were low in defender self-efficacy and if they belonged to classrooms low in collective efficacy. Taken together, our findings suggest that efficacy beliefs both at the individual and at the classroom level contribute to explaining variability in students' bystander behaviors, which has potential implications for prevention and intervention work.     

Effectiveness of a school-based intervention to prevent child sexual abuse—Evaluation of the German IGEL program

BackgroundChild sexual abuse (CSA) is a problem with severe consequences for victimized children. A variety of interventions have been developed and implemented over the last decades to prevent CSA. However, most of them have not been systematically evaluated to determine their effectiveness. The IGEL program is a school-based intervention to prevent CSA in third-grade primary school children in Germany.MethodsThis study was conducted using a quasi-experimental design, in which almost 300 children and their parents from eight intervention and four control schools were surveyed three times (pretest, posttest, 3 months later). In order to measure outcomes, a questionnaire was developed based on validated instruments to assess the knowledge, courses of action and self-protective skills of the children. Furthermore, increased anxiety and generalized touch aversion were examined as potentially harmful side effects of the program.ResultsThe results clearly demonstrate increased CSA-related knowledge and courses of action in children from the intervention group compared to the control children. These effects were medium-sized and sustained for at least three months after the last session. No meaningful negative side effects were detected in the evaluation for either the children or parents.ConclusionThe outcome evaluation indicates that the IGEL program is an effective intervention in terms of knowledge about CSA and known courses of action, and may therefore contribute to the prevention of CSA in primary schools. Despite this positive core finding of the intermediate outcomes, some adaptations of the program to children with different cultural backgrounds were made prior to further dissemination.     

Child safeguarding practices in light of the Deserving/Undeserving paradigm: A historical & contemporary analysis

BackgroundContemporary child protection systems in the UK need to be seen in light of the late nineteenth century child rescue movement, at a time of curbs in public spending, shifts in attitudes towards children’s welfare and the development of social work. There are similarities in the social, institutional and legal contexts, between the nineteenth century and today, centralising ‘deservedness’, that determined and determines children’s access to services.ObjectiveThe current article compares historical data and practices of children in care in the UK, encompassing 1881–1918, with contemporary data and practices, through the lens of the deserving/undeserving paradigm, inherited from the Poor Law of 1834.Participants and SettingDrawing on two data sets, namely historic children’s case files (N = 108), 1881–1918 from the Children’s Society (a philanthropic institution) highlighting the perception of custodians, doctors, professionals, as well as children and parents, and current data from interviews with young care leavers and safeguarding practitioners (N = 42), our research focuses on the most disadvantaged children with complex needs and damaging (pre)care experiences.MethodsData is analysed using thematic content analysis, framed within critical realist ontology, taking account of stratified non-linear dynamics of processes at different levels.Results and ConclusionIn both data sets the inability to support certain children is justified by referring to their complex needs and mental health and behavioural problems., Here, the child is held accountable and placed in the ‘undeserving’ category and consequently misses out on help and support, highlighting a need for awareness, and reflective and reflexive practice among practitioners/professionals.     

A changing child welfare workforce: What worker characteristics are valued in child welfare?

A child welfare system is responsible for making difficult decisions. Child welfare workers are charged with assessing and determining when a child is in need of protection, including when it is necessary to intervene on behalf of children when their caregivers’ abilities and/or situation is deemed to put them at risk of abuse or neglect. Although the child welfare workforce in Ontario attended to an estimated 125,281 child maltreatment investigations in 2013, little is known about the skills, education, and experiences of these investigating workers. Notwithstanding assumptions about the qualifications and characteristics necessary for effective child welfare practice, few studies explicitly link the specific characteristics of workers to children, youth, and families achieving positive case outcomes. These assumptions have been shaped by a multitude of factors including knowledge of human resources, professional standards, and educational requriements. This study examined data from five cycles over twenty years of Ontario Incidence Studies (-1993, -1998, -2003, -2008, -2013) to provide a profile of child welfare workers. This is the first study to examine the changing profile of child welfare workers in any province in Canada and provides a foundation for developing effective recruitment and professional development strategies, and promoting a positive work environment. Policy and practice implications for the changing needs of these families are discussed.     

Math Fluency: Accuracy Versus Speed in Preoperational and Concrete Operational First and Second Grade Children

Cognitive abilities as well as math fluency play an important role in mathematical skills. Understanding the relationship between cognitive abilities and mathematical skills is imperative to teaching effective arithmetic skills. The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between cognitive ability and math fluency with 38 first and second grade elementary aged children. Results demonstrate that preoperational children lacked the speed of concrete operational children but achieved comparable levels of accuracy when completing arithmetic problems.     

Exposure to violence,typology, and recidivism in a probation sample of domestic violence perpetrators

The present study investigated the predictive utility of self-reported domestic violence perpetrators’ exposure to violence in their family of origin and patterns related to this exposure through the use of longitudinal analyses on a sample of 228 men on probation in Lake County, Illinois. Differences in typology, recidivism, recidivism frequency, and violent behavior survival patterns in men with a history of domestic violence perpetration and with varying levels of family of origin violence exposure were examined. Findings suggest that those who witnessed interparental violence (either alone, or in combination with experiencing violence) were most likely to be classified as Generally Violent offenders (e.g., perpetrators who direct violence toward their family and others), compared to those who did not report experiencing or witnessing violence. In addition, results also indicate that men who experienced both witnessing interparental violence and receiving physical abuse in childhood were more likely to recidivate more frequently compared to those who did not report experiencing or witnessing violence. No significant findings for typology and recidivism were noted. Clinical and policy/practice implications are discussed.