Using Child Advocacy Center Tracking Data to Examine Criminal Disposition Times

Given the difficulty of obtaining criminal justice data on child abuse cases, information from child advocacy centers could be an important resource for answering questions about criminal justice outcomes for child abuse cases. In this exploratory study, we use data from one child advocacy center (N = 632) to examine the feasibility of using NCAtrak, a national computerized, Web-based case tracking system, to examine criminal disposition timeframes in child abuse cases. The system data indicated that the time frame for the cases to be criminally resolved varied widely. About one in four child physical and sexual abuse cases with adult offenders took more than one year to reach a final disposition. About 11% of child sexual abuse cases with juvenile offenders took more than one year to reach a criminal disposition. We encourage child advocacy centers using computer-based data systems to think of additional ways they might use this potentially rich source of data.     

A qualitative data analysis: family victim advocates in child advocacy centers

ABSTRACT

Family victim advocates in child advocacy centers provide a valuable resource to children and parents involved in child abuse investigations. This work requires that family victim advocates be knowledgeable in such areas as child development, crisis intervention, community resources, family relationships, child welfare and criminal justice systems. Because family victim advocates provide essential services to parents and caregivers, the role requires ongoing training and education to remain current on the ever-changing complexities of working with not only the children and families but also the criminal and child protection systems responsible for investigating these cases. The current study reports the findings from a nationwide survey of family victim advocates employed in child advocacy centers related to their motivation for doing the work as well as their perceptions of their training and potential training needs. A group of doctoral students comprised the research team and worked collaboratively under the supervision of university faculty to conduct the qualitative data analysis. The findings describe the characteristics and motivations of family victim advocates working in child advocacy centers and emphasize the need for more advanced trainings that focus on skill-building and strengths-based practices utilized to support children and parents in child abuse cases.     

Describing the context and nature of emotional maltreatment reports in children

The circumstances leading to reports of emotional maltreatment are potentially unique from those of other abuse types. This study utilized data from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS), which is a federally sponsored effort requiring the submission of case-level data on all children who were subject to maltreatment investigations by state child welfare agencies. The central aims of this study were to examine case-level characteristics of sole occurrences of emotional maltreatment Child Protective Service (CPS) reports in an effort to address how caregiver and child risk correlates affect the substantiation of these allegations. A cluster analysis was performed to explore how the risk assessment factors grouped together; secondarily, the cluster groupings were examined in a logistic regression model to measure factors associated with substantiation of these abuse reports. Four unique clusters emerged, with one cluster absent any risk assessment factors entirely and another cluster solely composed of domestic violence. Caregiver risk factors with the highest odds of predicting report substantiation included caregiver substance abuse, domestic violence, and caregiver learning disabilities.     

Prosecution of Child Sexual Abuse Cases Involving Preschool-Aged Children: A Study of Swedish Cases from 2010 to 2014

Alleged child sexual abuse against preschool-aged children is often considered one of the most challenging cases for a prosecutor to handle. The aim of the current study was to examine differences between prosecuted and discontinued cases of alleged sexual abuse of preschool-aged children. Data from Swedish criminal cases of alleged sexual abuse of children ages 2–6 issued from 2010 to 2014 were analyzed (N = 130). Prosecuted cases were more likely to contain forensic evidence (documentation of abuse, corroborative DNA evidence, or a corroborative medical examination), or a confession from the suspect, while such evidence was not available in any discontinued case. Furthermore, cases where the child was older, where the prosecutor had decided to conduct an interview with the child, and where there was more than one alleged victim were more likely to be prosecuted. Factors that were associated with a decreased likelihood of prosecution were ongoing custody disputes between parents, foster care placements prior to the abuse, and if the report concerned a boy. Boys and younger children were also less likely to be interviewed. The results suggest that prosecution of sexual abuse cases involving preschool-aged children remains difficult and that there is room for improvements in these investigations.     

Child Abuse and Neglect: Perspectives on a National Emergency

Hundreds of thousands of children are being abused and neglected in the United States annually. The structures devised to respond to this abuse and neglect have been unsuccessful. The United States government continues to spend billions of dollars on programs to deal with the effects of these unsuccessful responses. Child abuse and neglect in the United States now represent a national emergency. In this article, we will provide a historical, cultural, and contemporary perspective on child abuse and neglect. This perspective throws light on the complexity of the national emergency and provides a context for further exploration of the issue.     

The Co-Occurrence of Child Abuse and Domestic Violence: An Issue of Service Delivery for Social Service Professionals

In order to add to the growing literature on intergenerational rates of family violence, data were collected from a community-based child abuse agency. The study's purpose was to compare the co-occurrence of child abuse/neglect (CAN) and domestic violence (DV), and the prevalence of CAN and parent's childhood history of abuse. Data were collected from 537 families through intake and subsequent interviews in an attempt to determine the relationship among CAN and DV, and CAN and parent's childhood history of abuse. A chi-square analysis indicated significant relationships among these variables. Of the participants in this sample, 48.9% had experienced both CAN and DV. These results also indicated that 66.3% of participants had a childhood history of CAN and were currently experiencing issues of CAN with their own children. Logistic regression was utilized to examine whether families involved with Child Protective Services (CPS) were at higher risk for DV and/or parental childhood history of CAN. The results indicate that CPS-involved families were approximately three times as likely to have a parent reporting a childhood history of CAN but were not at significantly higher odds for DV. Implications for service delivery are discussed.     

Twice Silenced: The Underreporting of Child Sexual Abuse in Orthodox Jewish Communities

ABSTRACT

Child sexual abuse remains an underreported crime throughout the world, despite extensive research and resources dedicated both to improving investigative techniques and helping children disclose their experiences. The discovery of rampant cover-ups within the Catholic Church has exposed some of the ways religious and cultural issues can impede reporting to authorities. This article examines specific factors that contribute to the underreporting of child sexual abuse within Orthodox Jewish communities. It also explores ways in which these communities have handled child sexual abuse reporting in the past and describes recent progress. Implications are offered for CSA prevention, detection, and recovery in Orthodox Jewish communities as well as other minority religious groups.     

Evaluating Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse Within Complex Child Custody Cases

SUMMARY

This article provides a framework for identifying and assembling the interdependent elements of a child custody evaluation with allegations of child sexual abuse. The identification of several myths regarding child sexual abuse (CSA) introduces the subject matter of this article. A forensic evaluation model (Heilbrun, 2001) is then used to organize the custody evaluator's tasks into the following sequential classifications: (a) preparation; (b) data collection; (c) data interpretation; and (d) communication of results. Through this model, the entwined tasks of evaluating the child's needs and the parents' capacities to meet the child's needs, while simultaneously examining the question of child sexual abuse, are addressed.     

Betrayed and Broken: A Study of the Experiences of Victims of Child Sexual Abuse in the Ga Community in Accra,Ghana

ABSTRACT

Child sexual abuse is increasingly becoming an issue of concern in most societies across the globe, including Ghana. This is a phenomenological study that sought to describe the lived experiences of victims of child sexual abuse in Ghana, using the Ga community as a case study. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were used to identify 17 sexually abused children in the Ga Community. Using the interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), four main themes described the experiences of the victims: (a) forced sex (b) incest (c) joleying and (d) transactional sex. The findings illustrate the different circumstances in which children were sexually abused in the community studied. It also presents socio-cultural factors that normalizes the sexual abuse of children in the Ga Community. These findings underline the need for effective preventive programs and community interventions to protect children and support victims of child sexual abuse.     

Examination of the relationship between social support and treatment outcomes in mothers referred by Child Protective Services utilizing the Significant Other Support Scale

ABSTRACT

Supportive social networks may play an important role in recovery for mothers within the umbrella of Child Protective Services (CPS). However, investigators have yet to develop methods of measuring how significant others contribute to the treatment and recovery process. In this study, the influence of significant others was examined in the family-based treatment of 38 mothers who were referred for Family Behavior Therapy by CPS. The Significant Other Support Scale (SOSS) was empirically developed and subsequently utilized to assess the extent to which participants’ significant others were perceived by treatment providers to support the participants’ goals during treatment sessions. Results indicated that SOSS scores (but not participant and significant other session attendance) were associated with lower participant child abuse potential and drug use frequency at the conclusion of treatment. There was no relationship found between SOSS scores and participant session attendance. However, there was a positive correlation between SOSS scores and significant other session attendance (r = .489, p < .01). The results of this study suggest the quality of significant other support during treatment sessions in this population of mothers may be more important to improving treatment outcomes than session attendance per se. Future directions are discussed in light of the results, including methods of using SOSS scores to assist family-based treatments.     

Child Sexual Abuse News: A Systematic Review of Content Analysis Studies

Public knowledge and attitudes toward child sexual abuse are shaped through media depictions and coverage. Since the media are the main source of information about child sexual abuse, studies of child sexual abuse news can help us understand how news is created, how child sexual abuse is presented to the public, and what is the possible impact of such presentation and coverage on the audience. A systematic review of content analysis research is conducted using predefined criteria in order to identify quality studies, main findings, research gaps and to develop recommendations for future studies. International databases were systematically searched using keywords in September 2017. A total of 24 original quantitative content analysis studies published in the English language were included in the review and evaluated according to research methodology. The framework of child sexual abuse news media studies is developed and main findings are highlighted: (1) presentation and coverage of child sexual abuse (n = 7); (2) prevalence of coverage of CSA cases reported to the authorities (n = 2); (3) presentation and coverage of child abuse and sexual crimes where child sexual abuse is only a subtopic (n = 9); (4) presentation and coverage of specific child sexual abuse cases or issues (n = 6). Although studies represent valuable contribution, most did not meet content analysis design and reporting standards or both (e.g., calculating intercoder reliability), which seriously compromises validity and replicability requirements. Recommendation for future studies and most common errors in conducting content analysis are emphasized.     

When practice and policy collide: Child welfare workers' perceptions of investigation processes

This qualitative study examines variability in practices surrounding Child Protective Services (CPS) investigations regarding the allegations of child maltreatment. Working under the auspices of a community-research collaboration with Department of Human Services officials, university researchers conducted a series of focus groups with CPS caseworkers in a state that was under court-ordered consent decree to improve child welfare investigations. Focus groups with caseworkers sought to better understand caseworkers' common investigative practices and their perceptions of best practices in conducting child welfare investigations. Two main areas were noted for improvement: (1) the need for ongoing training of CPS workers, particularly at the stage of initial intake of the allegations of maltreatment, and cross-training of police and hospital staff who regularly work with CPS, and (2) implementation of an improved risk assessment tool. These recommendations are discussed in detail.     

Multiple Response System: Evaluation of Policy Change in North Carolina's Child Welfare System

Systemic challenges within child welfare have prompted many states to explore new strategies aimed at protecting children while meeting the needs of families, but doing so within the confines of shrinking budgets. Differential Response has emerged as a promising practice for low or moderate risk cases of child maltreatment. This mixed methods evaluation explored various aspects of North Carolina's differential response system, known as the Multiple Response System (MRS), including: child safety, timeliness of response and case decision, frontloading of services, case distribution, implementation of Child and Family Teams, collaboration with community-based service providers and Shared Parenting. Utilizing Child Protective Services (CPS) administrative data, researchers found that compared to matched control counties, MRS: had a positive impact on child safety evidenced by a decline in the rates of substantiations and re-assessments; temporarily disrupted timeliness of response in pilot counties but had no effect on time to case decision; and increased the number of upfront services provided to families during assessment. Qualitative data collected through focus groups with providers and phone interviews with families provided important information on key MRS strategies, highlighting aspects that families and social workers like as well as identifying areas for improvement. This information is useful for continuous quality improvement efforts, particularly related to the development of training and technical assistance programs at the state and local level.     

A National Survey of Child Advocacy Center Directors Regarding Knowledge of Assessment,Treatment Referral,and Training Needs in Physical and Sexual Abuse

Mental health services are a core component of child advocacy centers in the United States. Child advocacy center directors were surveyed about (a) trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder; (b) referral criteria for treatment of abuse victims; (c) evidence-based treatments for abused children; (d) reliable, valid, and normed measures helpful in assessment; and (e) training needs. Directors accurately identified posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms, but additional symptoms were misidentified. Directors identified best practices for assessment and treatment, but they misidentified non-evidence-based practices. Primary reasons for referral for services included severity of abuse and emotional response of the child. However, referrals based on assessment findings were not a high priority. Directors expressed some training needs for staff consistent with issues identified in the study.     

The Child Abuse Risk Evaluation Dutch Version (CARE-NL): A retrospective validation study

Abstract

The Child Abuse Risk Evaluation – Dutch version (CARE-NL) is a structured professional guideline for assessing the risk of all types of child abuse. The CARE-NL comprises 18 risk factors: eight Parental characteristics, three Parent-Child interaction factors, five Family factors, one Child vulnerability factor, and an extra factor for child sexual abuse risk. We examined interrater reliability and predictive accuracy of the instrument in a retrospective study at Advice and Reporting Centers on Child Abuse (ARCCA) in The Netherlands. The ARCCA files contained limited information on Parental risk factors, while parental characteristics, such as mental disorder and substance abuse, are the most important risk factors for (repeated) child abuse. On the other hand, the majority of the files included ample information on child and family characteristics. The CARE-NL could be reliably coded by trained raters and the predictive accuracy for out-of-home placement (AUC = .73) and placement of the child under court supervision (AUC = .78), at two years follow-up, was adequate. Use of the CARE-NL ensures that the assessment of the risk of child abuse focuses on the most important, empirically based risk factors in a structured and coherent way.     

Preliminary evaluation of contingent meals and telephone use to improve evidence-supported family therapy session attendance in mothers referred by Child Protective Services for substance abuse

Persons referred by Child Protective Services (CPS) for substance abuse evidence high rates of nonattendance to therapy sessions, taxing systems of care and exacerbating outcomes. This study examined the influence of two telephone-based incentive programs on therapy session attendance in mothers who were referred by CPS for substance abuse. After baseline therapy session attendance was established in an evidence-based clinic that incorporated a telephone engagement intervention (Phase I), participants were provided free cellular telephones with limited minutes and permitted to order free meals delivered by the therapist during upcoming sessions (Phase II). The third phase was similar to Phase II, but participants were provided unlimited minutes. Results indicated that participants’ attendance was significantly improved when meals and cellular telephone minutes were contingent on attendance. Although the percentage of sessions attended by participants during Phase III was higher than Phase II, unlimited minutes and meals did not significantly enhance attendance relative to limited minutes and meals. Session attendance for significant others of these participants was significantly higher during Phase III as compared with Phase I. Session attendance of significant others was statistically similar between Phase I and II and between Phase II and Phase III. Study implications and recommendations for future research and practice are discussed in light of the findings.     

Child Maltreatment, Abortion Availability, and Economic Conditions

Child maltreatment is a substantial problem in the U.S. yet has received relatively little attention from economists. This article examines the relationship between abortion availability and economic factors at the time children were conceived and subsequent measures of child maltreatment in the U.S. as well as the influence of contemporaneous economic conditions. Our measures of child maltreatment are state-level rates of child abuse and neglect reports, the fraction of children receiving social services, and child deaths and murders. The results indicate that legalized abortion for each successive cohort led to a decline in total reported incidents of child abuse and neglect of about 10 percent and a negative effect on the fraction of children receiving social services. Child deaths and murders are not related to abortion legalization. Medicaid funding restrictions are associated with an increase in substantiated reports of abuse and an increase in murders by relatives or parents; other post-legalization restrictions are not consistently associated with the various measures of child maltreatment. The effects of welfare benefits, average income, and unemployment rates are mixed.     

Clinicians' Attributions of Responsibility for Sexual and Physical Child Abuse

Although responsibility attribution is known to influence decisions in clinical practice, factors which influence responsibility attribution for child abuse are not well understood. In the present study, licensed practicing psychologists from two states (n = 328) responded to clinical case vignettes which experimentally manipulated five two-level independent variables. As dependent measures, subjects assigned relative percentages of responsibility for abuse to the father, mother, child/victim, and an older sister. Results indicated that fathers suspected of sexual abuse were held significantly more responsible than those suspected of physical abuse. In addition, adolescent age victims were held significantly more responsible than seven year old victims. All of the sources of responsibility were affected by the child providing a verbal disclosure of abuse to a psychotherapist. Regression analyses also showed that certainty in the occurrence of abuse and responsibility attributed to the child/victim and older sister accounted for 31% of the variance in decisions to report the case as suspected abuse.     

Ritual Child Abuse

The phenomenon of ritualistic child abuse is explored. The author proposes definitions for "ritualistic child abuse" and "cult ritualistic child abuse," and articulates the questions that must be addressed in determining the scope of the problem and evaluating current assumptions about this issue. Questions relating to the issues of the credibility of the reports of child and adult victims are also discussed.