This timely, much-needed resource identifies gaps in our understanding of the effects of exposure to violence on children -- and sets a direction for future research to support interventions and violence prevention.;
Each year, child protective services receive reports of child abuse and neglect involving six million children, and many more go unreported. The long-term human and fiscal consequences of child abuse and neglect are not relegated to the victims themselves-they also impact their families, future relationships, and society. In 1993, the National Research Council (NRC) issued the report, Under-standing Child Abuse and Neglect, which provided an overview of the research on child abuse and neglect. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research updates the 1993 report and provides new recommendations to respond to this public health challenge. According to this report, while there has been great progress in child abuse and neglect research, a coordinated, national research infrastructure with high-level federal support needs to be established and implemented immediately. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research recommends an actionable framework to guide and support future child abuse and neglect research. This report calls for a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to child abuse and neglect research that examines factors related to both children and adults across physical, mental, and behavioral health domains-including those in child welfare, economic support, criminal justice, education, and health care systems-and assesses the needs of a variety of subpopulations. It should also clarify the causal pathways related to child abuse and neglect and, more importantly, assess efforts to interrupt these pathways. New Directions in Child Abuse and Neglect Research identifies four areas to look to in developing a coordinated research enterprise: a national strategic plan, a national surveillance system, a new generation of researchers, and changes in the federal and state programmatic and policy response.
Childhood is ideally a time of safety, marked by freedom from the economic, sexual, and political demands that later become part of adult life. For many children, however, particularly those who live in our inner cities, childhood is increasingly a time of danger. In the urban war zones of Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., children grow up with firsthand knowledge of terror and violence. This book examines the threat to childhood development posed by living amid chronic community violence. Most importantly, it shows caregiving adults such as teachers, psychologists, social workers, and counselors how they can work together to help children while they are still children--before they become angry, aggressive adults.
"Each chapter contains recommendations for legislators, policy makers, researchers, and families. This book should be on the desk, and minds, of legislators, attorneys, social workers and other mental health professionals who encounter and wish to ameliorate the effects of violence in the lives of their young constituents, clients, and patients." -JOURNAL OF CHILD AND FAMILY STUDIESQuestions relating to violence and children surround us in the media: should V-chips be placed in every television set? How can we prevent another Columbine school shooting from occurring? How should pornography on the internet be regulated? The Handbook of Children, Culture and Violence addresses these questions and more, providing a comprehensive, interdisciplinary examination of childhood violence that considers children as both consumers and perpetrators of violence, as well as victims of it. The Handbook offers much-needed empirical evidence that will help inform debate about these important policy decisions. Moreover, it is the first single volume to consider situations when children are responsible for violence, rather than focusing exclusively on occasions when they are victimized. Providing the first comprehensive overview of current research in the field, the editors have brought together the work of a group of prominent scholars whose work is united by a common concern for the impact of violence on the lives of children. The Handbook of Children, Culture and Violence is poised to become the ultimate resource and reference work on children and violence for researchers, teachers, and students of psychology, human development and family studies, law, communications, education, sociology, and political science/ public policy. It will also appeal to policymakers, media professionals, and special interest groups concerned with reducing violence in children's lives. Law firms specializing in family law, as well as think tanks, will also be interested in the Handbook.
The post-war world has become characterized by fierce new assertions of nationalism and sovereignty. Many regions - such as Bosnia, Somalia and Northern Ireland - are threatened by violent ethnic, religious and cultural strife. Almost daily on our television screens we see the faces of frightened children caught up in war, yet research into the effects of war on children is patchy and not well known. Children and Political Violence provides a critical evaluation of attempts to answer questions about the impact of political violence on such topics as children's aggression, moral development, and interpersonal relations. Much of the material is concerned with children who witness, experience or participate in violent acts, and with the children's stress and coping in violent circumstances. Other chapters deal with the effects on the social fabric of children's lives of the loss of families, destruction of social networks, homelessness, and the challenge of ensuring that the next generation grows up to reject violence as a way of settling political disputes. Written in a highly accessible style with many real-life examples, Children and Political Violence will be of broad interest to students, researchers and practitioners in child psychology and psychiatry, education, conflict studies and peace studies.
The Politics of Child Sexual Abuse is the first study of activism against child sexual abuse, tracing its emergence in feminist anti-rape efforts, its development into mainstream self-help, and its entry into mass media and public policy. Nancy Whittier deftly charts the development of the movement's "therapeutic politics," demonstrating that activists viewed tactics for changing emotions and one's sense of self as necessary for widespread social change and combined them with efforts to change institutions and the state. A lucid and moving account, this book draws powerful lessons about the transformative potential of therapeutic politics, their connection to institutions, and the processes of incomplete social change that characterize American politics today.
More than 1 billion children - half of all children in the world - are exposed to violence every year, in many forms and places, online and off. Whether a target or a witness, a child's exposure to violence has a severe impact on mental health. Such experiences with violence are often traumatic, evoking toxic responses to stress that cause both immediate and longterm physiological and psychological damage, including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, borderline personality disorder, anxiety, substance use disorders, sleep and eating disorders, and suicide. As the international community begins a Decade of Action to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, mental health must be imperative to measures employed to prevent and respond to violence against children and fulfill the promises of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. In support of that process, this publication provides an overview of international evidence on the ways in which violence harms children's mental health, considering both diverse settings and forms of violence, developmental differences in the aftermath, and the most significant risk and protective factors. Highlighting the urgent need for action alongside continued gaps in knowledge of worthwhile solutions, the report also offers existing, effective approaches that should be pursued.
Comprehensive history of the Children’s Bureau from 1912-2012 in eBook form that shares the legacy of this landmark agency that established the first Federal Government programs, research and social reform initiatives aimed to improve the safety, permanency and well-being of children, youth and families. In addition to bios of agency heads and review of legislation and publications, this important book provides a critical look at the evolution of the Nation and its treatment of children as it covers often inspiring and sometimes heart-wrenching topics such as: child labor; the Orphan Trains, adoption and foster care; infant and maternal mortality and childhood diseases; parenting, infant and child care education; the role of women's clubs and reformers; child welfare standards; Aid to Dependent Children; Depression relief; children of migrants and minorities (African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans), including Indian Boarding Schools and Indian Adoption Program; disabled children care; children in wartime including support of military families and World War II refugee children; Juvenile delinquency; early childhood education Head Start; family planning; child abuse and neglect; natural disaster recovery; and much more. Child welfare and related professionals, legislators, educators, researchers and advocates, university school of social work faculty and staff, libraries, and others interested in social work related to children, youth and families, particularly topics such as preventing child abuse and neglect, foster care, and adoption will be interested in this comprehensive history of the Children's Bureau that has been funded by the U.S. Federal Government since 1912.
This open access book presents a discussion on human rights-based attributes for each article pertinent to the substantive rights of children, as defined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). It provides the reader with a unique and clear overview of the scope and core content of the articles, together with an analysis of the latest jurisprudence of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. For each article of the UNCRC, the authors explore the nature and scope of corresponding State obligations, and identify the main features that need to be taken into consideration when assessing a State’s progressive implementation of the UNCRC. This analysis considers which aspects of a given right are most important to track, in order to monitor States' implementation of any given right, and whether there is any resultant change in the lives of children. This approach transforms the narrative of legal international standards concerning a given right into a set of characteristics that ensure no aspect of said right is overlooked. The book develops a clear and comprehensive understanding of the UNCRC that can be used as an introduction to the rights and principles it contains, and to identify directions for future policy and strategy development in compliance with the UNCRC. As such, it offers an invaluable reference guide for researchers and students in the field of childhood and children’s rights studies, as well as a wide range of professionals and organisations concerned with the subject.
From the 1950s to the 1980s, the New Zealand government took more than 100,000 children from experiences of strife, neglect, poverty or family violence and placed them under state care in residential facilities. In homes like Epuni and Kingslea, Kohitere and Allendale, the state took over as parent. The state failed. Within institutions, children faced abysmal conditions, limited education and social isolation. They endured physical, sexual and psychological violence, as well as secure cells, knock-out sedatives and electro-convulsive therapy. This book tells the story of 105 New Zealanders who experienced this mass institutionalisation. Informed by thousands of pages of Child Welfare accounts, letters, health reports, legal statements as well as interviews, Stanley tells the children’s story: growing up in homes characterised by violence and neglect; removal into the State’s ‘care’ network; daily life in the institutions; violence and punishment; and the legacy of this treatment for victims today. The state masqueraded as a good parent, but its violence and negligence made things worse for children. This book is a moving account of the experiences of those placed into state care, and a powerful call for redress and change. It was over and over, it wasn’t just one night, it was many drunken nights, you know the smell of alcohol and stuff like that. I was often beaten . . . I got so used to the beatings that I never used to cry any more . . . I hid under the cot, and every time I knew they were coming I’d have to come out and just be prepared for anything – Ed He said to me ‘You’re going somewhere’. He said it with glee. ‘You’re going somewhere where they know how to treat people like you’. It was like he knew what the place [Hokio] was like and what was in store for me and it gave him a great deal of pleasure. I find that really cruel – Ray . . . I remember looking out the window and said ‘There’s police out there, what’s going on?’ Yeah and they’d come to pick me up, to put me in the girls’ home . . . I was just in shock . . . they wanted to take me. ‘What have I done? . . . The police just took me down to the station...and then the social worker took me from there to Bollard and then I was chucked in the cells. – Nanette