The COVID-19 pandemic triggered new risks for child maltreatment (CM) and exacerbated existing challenges for families and children, elevating the importance of child protection professionals (CPPs) ...while also adding barriers to their work. During the pandemic, many CPPs experienced increased workloads, a disrupted work environment, and personal pandemic-related hardships. However, the scope of how COVID-19 impacted CPPs globally, as well as their adopted coping strategies, have not been well explored.
This study addresses these gaps in the research by conducting an international scoping review to explore and analyze these topics.
The scoping review was performed in six languages: English, Hebrew, Arabic, French, Spanish, and Portuguese, across 16 databases. Sixteen manuscripts were included in the final thematic analysis of this review.
Two main themes were identified: 1) the impact of COVID-19 on CPPs, and 2) the coping and adaptation strategies employed by CPPs during COVID-19. This review revealed and emphasized the importance of CPPs' resilience during COVID-19, underpinned by the theoretical framework of the social ecology of resilience.
This study highlights the responsibility of social ecologies and organizational structures to create readiness for a rapid response in times of crisis as well as valuable evidence to inform how CPPs, children, and families may be better supported in the event of a future crisis.
Alongside deficits in children's wellbeing, the COVID-19 pandemic has created an elevated risk for child maltreatment and challenges for child protective services worldwide. Therefore, some children ...might be doubly marginalized, as prior inequalities become exacerbated and new risk factors arise.
To provide initial insight into international researchers' identification of children who might have been overlooked or excluded from services during the pandemic.
This study was part of an international collaboration involving researchers from Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Israel, South Africa, Uganda, the UK and the USA. Researchers from each country provided a written narrative in response to the three research questions in focus, which integrated the available data from their countries.
Three main questions were explored: 1) Who are the children that were doubly marginalized? 2) What possible mechanisms may be at the root? and 3) In what ways were children doubly marginalized? The international scholars provided information regarding the three questions. A thematic analysis was employed using the intersectional theoretical framework to highlight the impact of children's various identities.
The analysis yielded three domains: (1) five categories of doubly marginalized children at increased risk of maltreatment, (2) mechanisms of neglect consisting of unplanned, discriminatory and inadequate actions, and (3) children were doubly marginalized through exclusion in policy and practice and the challenges faced by belonging to vulnerable groups.
The COVID-19 pandemic can be used as a case study to illustrate the protection of children from maltreatment during worldwide crises. Findings generated the understanding that child protective systems worldwide must adhere to an intersectionality framework to protect all children and promote quality child protection services.
