NCJ Number
216316
Journal
Child Abuse & Neglect Volume: 20 Issue: 9 Dated: September 2006 Pages: 969-977
Date Published
September 2006
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This paper examines ethical issues involved in obtaining children's self-reports about their experience of abuse and neglect.
Abstract
Children's reports about how they are treated by parents and caregivers provide different and possibly more accurate estimates of the prevalence of various forms of maltreatment, which are inherently private and often only known to the perpetrators and the child victims. This paper reviews the ethical issues discussed by Carroll-Lind, Chapman, Gregory, and Maxwell (2006) in their New Zealand survey of 2,079 children ages 9 to 13 regarding their views and experiences of violence at home and at school. Their paper on this research outlines the arguments for obtaining such direct reports from children and describes the approach they used in obtaining the consent of children to participate in the research. In discussing the need for parental consent in self-report interviews or surveys of children, the current paper notes that the requirement for parents'/guardians' consent and/or the consent of children varies across jurisdictions under legislative requirements as well as the policies and practices of professional groups, funding organizations, and research ethics committees. This paper reviews these requirements in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In addition to discussing consent issues, this paper also considers researchers' decisions regarding whom to include in their research. Other ethical issues discussed regarding children's self-reports of abuse and neglect are promises of confidentiality and reporting obligations of professionals regarding suspicions of child maltreatment, as well as the protection of research information from court subpoena. 44 references