maltreatment

Last month’s commentary discussed the characteristics of chronic multitype child maltreatment that develops from chronic neglect through two main dynamics: the erosion or collapse of social norms around parenting and gradual loss of control over body, mind, emotions, interpersonal relationships and living conditions due to substance abuse, mood disorders (often co-occurring), and sometimes domestic violence as well, combined with poverty.

In this installment of The Sounding Board, Dee Wilson reviews what we know about chronic maltreatment and how to stop the path to it

In child welfare, genuine safety science demands a method that can spot the errors in all directions, including wrongful removal, writes Richard Wexler.

An annual federal report on child maltreatment confirms what other data has already suggested: That during the first six months of the coronavirus pandemic, reports and investigations of abuse and neglect plummeted, in large part due to the absence of child care workers and school personnel from the lives of many children in that time frame. 

Around the country, child welfare systems large and small have built a front door to child protection that relies heavily on information provided to the state from the public, especially from “mandated reporters” such as school officials, doctors and police officers. 

As America headed into the coronavirus pandemic, the number of children who were confirmed to have been victims of abuse or neglect fell to its lowest point in a long time, perhaps more than two decades, according to the annual report released today by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). 

Quesetta Bell has been a call specialist at the 2-1-1 call center in Akron, Ohio, for a year now. On an average day, she said, an operator in her position might get between 80 and 150 calls, anything from a query about city services to reports of downed power lines.