Sexual Abuse of Children - Essay Example

Sexual Abuse of Children Sexual abuse of children is one of the main problems required a special attention of law enforcement agencies and social services. Following D. Finkelhor et al (2001) state that sexual abuse of children is declining in the USA as a result of four large scale factors. These factors involve Large-scale prevention and intervention efforts which help to reduce family violence and neglect, emotional and sexual abuse. Finkelhor et al statement can be fully applied to the UK because the state and police agencies use similar methods and techniques to prevent sexual abuse of children in the UK. The four large scale factors aw self-report measures, improvement in other indicators of crime, administrative changes that have influenced decline, intervention strategies and programs. Other indicators of health status among American children and youth include rates of child abuse and neglect. While there is some controversy about whether the upswing in child abuse and neglect cases is a reflection of better reporting or of actual increases in cases, there appears to be a steady climb in the number of child abuse and neglect cases every year. The International Child Abuse Network: "Child abuse is the bad treatment of a child under the age of 18 by a parent, caretaker, someone living in their home or someone who works with or around children. Abuse of a child is anything that causes injury or puts the child in danger of physical injury" (Defining Child Maltreatment, n.d.). 'Sexual abuse' constitutes a continuum of activities which can range from flashing, exposure to pornographic material through inappropriate fondling to anal or vaginal penetration. On the other hand, just as feminists have sought to define rape as an act of violence, not a sexual act, it is right to remember that what is at stake in sexual abuse of a child is the expression of superior power rather than an inapposite sexual relationship. Sexual abuse is classless representing the expression of deep-structured inequalities - between men and women, between adults and children. Miller-Perrin and Wurtele underline that it is difficult to define sexual abuse "as all definitions are time- and culture-bound as well as direct reflections of the values and orientations of communities and societies at large" (Miller-Perrin, Wurtele, 1993, p. 3). According to statistical results, the vast majority of sexual abuse is perpetrated by adult males on girls. A standard definition of child sexual abuse is that it is the involvement of developmentally immature children and adolescents in sexual actions which they cannot fully comprehend, to which they cannot give informed consent, and which violate the taboos of social roles. It is somewhat redundant given what goes before, and it yokes abuse too closely to incest as traditionally understood (Jackson et al, 1991). Following Miller-Perrin and Wurtele, child sexual abuse "perpetrated by adults involves the exploitation of adult authority and power for sexual ends. This definition also includes children and adolescents as perpetrators if a situation involves the exploitation of a child by virtue of the perpetrator's size, age, sex, or status. It also includes experiences of physical contact between perpetrator and victim and those where contact may be limited or absent" (Miller-Perrin, Wurtele, 1993, p. 5). There were 669,000 reports of child maltreatment in 2005. By 2006, the reports were over 1 million, and in 2007, they had reached more than 2 million per year. Not only has there been a rise in the number of reports, but the type of injury has become increasingly serious, with a decline in the proportion of reports representing neglect and an increase in reports of sexual abuse and other serious maltreatment (the UK Statistics Authority 2008). . Each year, sexual abuse of children costs 4 millions pounds to the state (UK statistics Authority 2008). Area Child Protection Committees (ACPCs) provide the forum for joint working on child protection issues in the United Kingdom. Each ACPC must have representatives from the constituent agencies who play a role in child protection work. These are: Social Services, Police, Education, Health, Probation, and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) where appropriate. An ACPC is accountable to its constituent agencies, who are jointly responsible for the ACPC. Each member of an ACPC should be mandated to attend on behalf of their constituent agency and should have delegated authority defined to an agreed level by the constituent agency. The training guidelines are divided into two parts. The first part lists seventeen points for consideration when designing a comprehensive training program on child sexual abuse. The second part of the document provides a framework for implementing this training program. Joint meetings with senior managers and training officers are recommended to review the implementation and development of training initiatives as well as linking them to an ACPC's overall training strategy (Armstrong 33). The existence of an ACPC as an overseeing body for developing, monitoring, and reviewing child protection services is extremely positive. It conveys a message from the highest level of social organization that working together is the only way we can move towards effectively protecting children from abuse. It also pushes agencies to find ways of facilitating inter-agency liaison both at the macro level of policy and procedures, and also -- and more importantly -- at the micro level of service delivery to the child and their family. ACPCs are meant to function effectively as systems. They are horizontally organized, inter-organizational networks that are constrained by an administrative directive from a superordinate body, the government. They are large, continually shifting networks of coalitions and alliances (the latter are both familiar systemic terms) (Child Abuse: Overview 2001). Following the USA model, it is possible to say that the UK government partially applues these factors. Thus, it can improve social services and add such programs as administrative changes that have influenced decline, four self-report measures and improvement in other indicators of crime, Thirdly, it seems that the course membership were communicating something to their course organizers regarding the content of the course they were being offered. The request for the feminist perspective input had come from the course membership. This indicates that no participant felt sufficiently empowered to offer to do it for the rest of the course membership. Again it is unlikely that on a whole course no one knew anything about feminist issues in child protection. Additionally, the feminist perspective was not already on the course in a form that satisfied either the members or the course organizer. The solution of the dilemma of wanting to discuss feminism and child sexual abuse but not being able to themselves was to request an outsider to come and facilitate it. Another example of a similar issue also regarding feminism was a request to do a session on gender, race, and power issues in supervision with a panel of three other presenters, all male, each of whom was doing a major model of change -- psychodynamic, behavioral, and systemic -- in relation to supervision. The workshop was set up to discuss models of supervision. The framework itself conveys clear messages that the major models of change do not have comments to make about gender and race and that the only way to represent them is to request someone specifically to address them (Defining Child Maltreatment n.d.). By law, cases of suspected child abuse and/or neglect must be reported to the state department of social services so that an investigation and determination regarding placement can be made. Every child health professional who has ever reported a case of suspected child abuse knows what a wrenching experience it is. The provider struggles to be objective, but the situation evokes anger and frustration in even the most dispassionate. The clinician must be certain not to make rash decisions that have permanent consequences for families. When telling the parents about the child abuse reporting, it is critical to remember that the parents are feeling fearful, frustrated, helpless, and out of control. If one or both are at fault, they need immediate treatment themselves (Elliott, 20). The best way to tell the parents about the report is to emphasize the protective aspect of the filing. Every attempt should be made to make an alliance with the parent(s). If the team decides that the child is safe to return home, ongoing medical input remains critically important. The factors that led to the abuse or neglect may have been identified but not entirely modified. Other critical factors about the family may come to light (e.g., the father was just released from prison, the family's newborn is being treated at another hospital for symptoms of drug withdrawal, etc.). The monitoring can assist in providing structure to a family and can ultimately be a driving force in helping the family reorganize themselves to protect their children more effectively. In addition, an episode of abuse places the child in a high-risk category (Smullens 16). In the field of child protection there are professionals who are employed as trainers within departments, usually Social Services. Some ACPC s also employ trainers whose remit is to provide multidisciplinary training to staff from the constituent agencies involved in the task of child protection. Within its discipline, clinical psychology, it is rare for there to be someone employed with the sole purpose of training already qualified members of the same discipline. The extent to which training is incorporated into one's own organization is an indication of two paradoxical messages (Smullens 16). On the one hand, it reflects the importance of staff development and the need for a continual updating and reflection process on professional issues; on the other, it can imply a lack of confidence inspired by one's core discipline training. Inadvertently, having a training department can convey a basic dissatisfaction with the qualification training of the workers employed. For many years police officers and social workers have reflected on the irony that the profession that requires the minimum years to qualification (i.e. CQSW) often works with the most complex cases in child protection, whereas those with the maximum number of years to qualification (psychiatry) often work with the most amenable cases in child protection. Additionally, a work context that allows one to select the population one works with is stacked in favor of those with the most number of years of professional training (Summit 44). In the UK, within child protection, perhaps not sufficient attention is paid to other training forums that will increase workers' knowledge, skills, and confidence in doing the work. Whilst training will address some of these issues, there are other effective ways of increasing competencies, not least of which is on-going professional supervision at work. Over the years the balance between clinical work and raining work has shifted. Initially the balance was predominantly clinical, whereas latterly it has shifted to social support and prevention programs. Social workers are committed to a model in which practice and theory inform each other. This means social workers try to put theory into practice, but equally researchers attempt the reverse, putting practice into theory. Researchers endorse a model of trainer/ practitioner because this is a useful link or bridging position (Miller-Perrin and Wurtele 82). It is important that trainers have some understanding of the reality of doing the work, the context in which it is carried out, and the stresses it generates (Orr 65). On the one hand, it is very important and needs to be addressed; on the other, no one else who is presenting can address it. Inadvertently, this approach often marginalizes the very perspective it hopes to introduce. Sometimes requests for outside trainers spring from a desire to offer an experience of difference for the social worker. In these circumstances the training may occur over a longer period, and many different trainers will be invited to present their ideas to the course. It is helpful to have information regarding what previous relevant training participants have had; if the material you present is too novel or dissonant with what has gone before, it is unlikely to facilitate new learning. Requests can also be received for help regarding the best way to address a particular issue. Also, trainers can be given a brief that is too large to cover in the time allotted. This can be difficult to assess. If a particular group has worked together for some time, they may be able to get through more material in less time because they have more experience of working together as a learning system. In cases such as this, the trainer needs to be clear what can be accomplished in the time available under ideal learning conditions (Olafson 62). Different disciplines may hold different and incompatible beliefs about how learning takes place. Thrown together into a joint training venture, such epistemological differences regarding learning are sure to arise. This is not to say that all members from the same discipline have similar training experiences, but qualifying to be an 'x' may act as a significant context marker when in a multidisciplinary form. Gender, race, and status will also impact on the beliefs people have about learning. For example, new information or learning about sexual abuse did not reach certain professional circles until the information was imparted by someone perceived as having status within those professional circles. Learning is frequently seen as a linear phenomenon where someone older, wiser, and generally of high status imparts knowledge to someone younger, less wise, and, by inference, of lower status. It is not surprising then that sexual abuse was taken more seriously as an issue when male professionals started to raise issues that feminists and females had raised earlier (Olafson et al 586). Engagement is affected by the gender and race not only of the presenter, but also of the participants and the interaction between them. Whether a particular audience will engage with you depends on the context marker they prioritize. It may be the venue that has drawn them; or the organization that organized the event; or the speakers, either the range invited or specific individuals. What is subsequently actually said and how it is said will be secondary. Specific strategies for engaging the participants in learning about what you have to say may have to be devised (Jackson et al 82). The centre had researched the task well, providing social workers with copies of appropriate articles from the police surgeons' professional journals. Social workers used practices form other countries in talk-an example of learning to use the idiosyncratic language of the group you are hoping to engage. Administrative changes must be thought of in relation to the parameters of the training experience. Arriving for a specific and limited input requires a different strategy than conducting a one-day workshop or a course that runs throughout an academic year. In defining who you are, your approach to the work, your philosophy or value base, you are setting the frame within which learning with you may take place. This frames learning as an interactive phenomenon in which the parameters are multi-dimensional and interact on many levels simultaneously. Equally, learning may take place outside the context set aside for it (Ennew 720. In multi-disciplinary approach, it may be tempting to use warmup exercises that engage people on a personal level as a way of avoiding conflict that would arise if participants were engaged at the professional level immediately. Engaging participants as people is a way of using the "lowest common denominator" approach. However, this approach fails to recognize that context markers are perhaps infinite, as people can be divided into males and females, white people and black people, and so forth; so choosing the people level of engagement may mean you avoid conflict at one level, only to have it emerge at another. Consequently, expecting and welcoming conflict as the expression of difference and providing a context in which difference is the springboard for the dialectic is perhaps a better way of engaging. Additionally, deprofessionalizing people involved in child protection work is perhaps not the best way to enhance job performance in relation to specific tasks. Very few of these issues have clear answers. They are raised to highlight the issues of using quasi-therapy techniques whilst doing training (Gilbert. 92). For child protection professionals, this is a powerful theme because sexual abuse is so completely enmeshed with the abusive use of power both within the family and also in the wider system's response to it. Despite this common knowledge, very few training programmes concentrate on this theme or specifically design exercises that might highlight this. [Exceptions to this are an exercise in Prevention through Protection which specifically focuses on authority issues ( Bartlett, 1991) and a training package by OCDS ( Goudge & Hori, 1991) which proposes a power model for understanding not only sexual abuse but also other forms of institutionalized oppression. Facilitating the development of greater expertise within the training group over time should shift the differential of expertise from trainer to trainee. If learning is taking place, the possibility for a more equal distribution should begin to emerge. Clearly, this is more likely to occur in training programmes that run over time. This pattern of nurturance without fostering life-long dependence is especially difficult to achieve. It is a pattern that occurs in many contexts other than the training arena, but one that frequently impacts on the training experience (Gilbert. 98). Professional workers in child protection repeatedly refer to the stresses they experience as a consequence of their work. They often feel they do not receive the supervision they should, and they use training events as an opportunity to be fed both intellectually as well as emotionally. This may be equally true for the trainer. Training needs to recognize this aspect of the work and help professionals identify the right forum in which to raise their concerns. If training is isolated and set apart from the wider organization, it will reinforce the feelings of impotence and disconnectedness that the professionals are expressing. In this way, training can become the organization's conflict-regulating mechanisms. It can be used to siphon-off complaints about lack of supervision and a shortfall in resources by implying that greater knowledge and skills is the problem. The design of social services and police departments as a whole should begin to reflect the need to actively promote positive transfer of training skills to the work context. To do this, management needs to be fully engaged in the task of selection, not only of individuals for training, but also of courses. This should be wedded to the overall agency plan of action, in which priority learning tasks can be identified along with priority target audiences. Whilst evaluation of courses themselves may be useful (Gilbert 98). It is also important to see raining generating change in the professional practice of participants. The Department of Health Training Program in Child Sexual Abuse has continued to evolve. Every intake, of which there have been four to date, has been slightly different from the previous intake. This is an example of a training program learning to learn from itself. The course aims to actively promote positive transfer of training, not only for an individual trainee, but also for the organization that nominates the trainee on the program, by encouraging the Development Group that contains a vertical slice of the child protection network to consume the course with the aim of specific service developments for the nominating authority. In sum, the USA model can be successfully applied to the UK. The four large scale factors can be used as the bridge for the implementation gap between policy and practice. It can also be used to bridge the gender gap in child protection between predominantly male management and predominantly female practitioners. To be more effective at doing so, policies should occur not only in horizontal slices of the organization but also vertical ones. This would enable different levels of the system to interact in a different context and to elaborate the feedback vital to competent functioning that is so often attenuated due to pressure of work. Works Cited 1. Armstrong, L. Rocking the Cradle of Sexual Politics: What Happened When Women Said Incest, London:Women's Press, 1996. 2. Child Abuse: Overview. Mental Health Journal. 2001 3. CHILDREN'S SOCIAL WORK STATISTICS 2003-04. 2004. http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2004/10/20121/45472 4. Defining Child Maltreatment (n.d.). 5. Elliott, G. P. School Mobbing and Emotional Abuse: See It, Stop It, Prevent It, with Dignity and Respect. Brunner-Routledge, 2003. 6. Ennew, J. The Sexual Exploitation of Children, Cambridge:Polity Press, 1996. 7. Gilbert. N. Combatting Child Abuse: International Perspectives and Trends. Oxford University Press, 1997. 8. Jackson, J. W., Karlson, H. C., Tzeng O. S. C. Theories of Child Abuse and Neglect: Differential Perspectives, Summaries, and Evaluations. Praeger, 1991. 9. Freisthler, B., Gruenewald, P. J. Midanik, L. T. Alcohol Outlets and Child Physical Abuse and Neglect: Applying Routine Activities Theory to the Study of Child Maltreatment. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 2004, Vol. 65, pp. 586-595. 10. Miller-Perrin, C. L., Wurtele, S. K. Preventing Child Sexual Abuse: Sharing the Responsibility. University of Nebraska Press, 1993, 11. Olafson, E., Corwin, D. and Summit, R. 'Cycles of Discovery and Suppression', in Trauma, Amnesia and Denial, Texas: Family Violence and Sexual Assault Institute, 1996. 12. Orr, M. Accuracy About Abuse newsletters, available from AAA, PO Box 3125, London NW3 5QB, tel. 0171 431 5339, 1999. 13. Summit, R. 'Hidden Victims, Hidden Pain', in Wyatt, G. and Powell, G. (eds) Lasting Effects of Child Sexual Abuse, Thousand Oaks, Cal.: Sage, 1988. 14. Smullens, S. (The 5 Cycles of Emotional Abuse: Investigating a Malignant Victimization. Annals of the American Psychotherapy Association, 2002, Vol. 5, pp. 16-22. 15. UK statistics Authority. 2008. http://www.statistics.gov.uk/ Read More