NCJ Number
243025
Date Published
2013
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This paper presented by Child Family Community Australia (CFCA) provides practitioners, policymakers, and researchers involved with child protection services with an overview of a number of recent influential approaches to conceptualizing, recognizing, and responding to the complexity of co-occurring child maltreatment and trauma.
Abstract
Four key concepts are emphasized. First, one of the most recent major shifts in the focus of child maltreatment research is toward the features of the interrelatedness of childhood victimization experiences. Two principal frameworks have been developed for understanding and measuring this interrelatedness: "multi-type" maltreatment and "poly-victimization." Second, in concert with this shift, there has been recognition in the fields of traumatology and psychiatry that traditional mental health diagnoses often do not adequately capture the effects of chronic and/or multiple types of victimization. "Complex trauma" and "cumulative harm" are both popular models that account for complex traumatic outcomes. Third, researchers who have investigated the consequences of a specific form of victimization should account for the effects of other victimization experiences, as well as for the effects of cumulative experiences. Fourth, practice and policy responses that address children who experience single maltreatment events should be different for those children who have experienced multiple maltreatment events. This is because survivors of multiple maltreatment events are more likely to experience complex trauma and the negative effects of cumulative harm, both of which require more comprehensive intervention and treatment. 43 references