Child Abuse Prevention: Accomplishments and Challenges (From The APSAC [American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children] Handbook on Child Maltreatment, Second Edition, P 431-448, 2002, John E.B. Myers, Lucy Berliner, et al., eds. -- NCJ-198699)

• NCJ Number: 198716
• Author(s): Deborah Daro; Anne Cohn Donnelly
• Date Published: 2002
• Length: 18 pages
• Sale Source: Sage Publications, Inc
• Publication Format: Book (Softbound)
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter summarizes the collective strengths of current child abuse prevention efforts and highlights new approaches that prevention advocates might pursue if they are to keep pace with changes in family dynamics and social policy.

Abstract

At its most basic level, child abuse prevention is about strengthening the capacity of parents and societies to care for their children's health and well-being. This chapter begins by reviewing the theoretical frameworks that have shaped the development of child abuse prevention programming. These include psychodynamic theory, which suggests that parents would be less abusive if they had a better understanding of themselves and their parental role; learning theory which suggests that parents would be less abusive if they knew more about how best to care for their children; environmental theory, which indicates that parents would be less abusive if they had greater resources available to them; and ecological theory, which argues that parents would be less abusive if a network of services or supports would compensate for individual, situational, and environmental shortcomings. The discussion gives attention to the impact various forms of maltreatment have had on the design and replication of specific prevention strategies. The chapter then summarizes the key program models that have emerged in this field and the empirical evidence of their relative effectiveness. The program types reviewed are public education and awareness through the media, home visitation programs for new parents, and group-based and center-based interventions. The empirical evidence suggests that each of these three strategies has the potential to alter parenting knowledge, attitudes, and skills, but that this potential is far from universal in its realization. In contrast to the evolution of prevention efforts to reduce rates of physical abuse and neglect, efforts to prevent child sexual abuse have followed a different developmental path in the targeting of the potential victim rather than the potential perpetrator, as well as in an emphasis on primary rather than secondary or tertiary prevention. Descriptions of such approaches are presented. The chapter concludes with an outline of the major policy and program challenges facing researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. These include operating at scale, integrating across institutions and issues, and implementing diversified research methods. 113 references