•Children in general, perceive physical abuse as the most severe type of child abuse.•Arab and Jewish children perceive child abuse and neglect differently.•Arab children perceived neglect as more ...severe than Jewish children.•Jewish respondents perceived physical and emotional abuse as more severe than Arab children.•There are no or only small differences in the children's perceptions of child abuse by religiosity, age and gender.
Child abuse and neglect is a serious public health problem affecting millions of children around the world. Over the years enormous efforts have been made globally to define this phenomenon, but those efforts have been based solely on adults‘ perspectives and knowledge. Children have been excluded from the discourse. This article addresses this gap in the scientific knowledge by examining children's own views on child abuse and neglect, taking into account differences in ethnic group, gender, age and level or religiosity. The study included 1,475 Jewish and Arab children in Israel aged 9–13 years. They were asked to assign degree of severity to each of 34 items describing abusive behaviors against children.. Arab and Jewish children differed in the severity they assigned to different kinds of abusive behaviors: Arab children perceived neglect as more severe than Jewish children, whereas Jewish respondents perceived physical and emotional abuse as more severe than Arab children. While no differences were found with regard to level of religiosity, some variance was found with respect to gender and age/grade level.
Child sexual abuse (CSA) studies have significantly advanced the understanding of its prevalence and adverse consequences. Tremendous efforts worldwide have been devoted to CSA interventions. ...However, surprisingly, there is a lack of research dedicated to learning about experiences with therapy among adults who experienced CSA.
This study was designed to address this gap by exploring the perspectives and experiences with therapy among adults who experienced CSA.
Thirty-nine written testimonies comprised the current sample. All of the testimonies were provided to the Israeli Independent Public Inquiry into CSA by adults who experienced CSA and received therapy at one point in their lives. A qualitative inductive thematic analysis guided the exploration of the testimonies.
The testimonies provided an important glance into significant characteristics of therapy, such as the timing and reasons leading to therapy, and perceptions regarding what constitutes appropriate therapy. Although beneficial and rehabilitating therapy experiences were mentioned by some of the participants, the majority of the testimonies focused on experiences related to the obstacles and challenges to accessing and engaging in therapy faced by those who experienced CSA.
The testimonies not only addressed essential aspects of therapy, but also highlighted the importance of thoroughly comprehending the broad context of a person's life that leads them to seek therapy. The discussion points to grave social and policy lacunas that prevent people who experienced CSA from receiving therapy that is accessible, timely, subsidized, stigma-free and multifaceted.
COVID-19 has become a worldwide pandemic impacting child protection services (CPSs) in many countries. With quarantine and social distancing restrictions, school closures, and recreational venues ...suspended or providing reduced access, the social safety net for violence prevention has been disrupted significantly. Impacts include the concerns of underreporting and increased risk of child abuse and neglect, as well as challenges in operating CPSs and keeping their workforce safe.
The current discussion paper explored the impact of COVID-19 on child maltreatment reports and CPS responses by comparing countries using available population data.
Information was gathered from researchers in eight countries, including contextual information about the country’s demographics and economic situation, key elements of the CPS, and the CPS response to COVID-19. Where available, information about other factors affecting children was also collected. These data informed a discussion about between-country similarities and differences.
COVID-19 had significant impact on the operation of every CPS, whether in high- income or low-income countries. Most systems encountered some degree of service disruption or change. Risk factors for children appeared to increase while there were often substantial deficits in CPS responses, and in most countries there was at a temporary decrease in CM reports despite the increased risks to children.
The initial data presented and discussed among the international teams pointed to the way COVID-19 has hampered CPS responses and the protection of children more generally in most jurisdictions, highlighting that children appear to have been at greater risk for maltreatment during COVID-19.
A year has passed since COVID-19 began disrupting systems. Although children are not considered a risk population for the virus, there is accumulating knowledge regarding children's escalating risk ...for maltreatment during the pandemic.
The current study is part of a larger initiative using an international platform to examine child maltreatment (CM) reports and child protective service (CPS) responses in various countries. The first data collection, which included a comparison between eight countries after the pandemic's first wave (March–June 2020), illustrated a worrisome picture regarding children's wellbeing. The current study presents the second wave of data across 12 regions via population data (Australia New South Wales, Brazil, United States California, Pennsylvania, Colombia, England, Germany, Israel, Japan, Canada Ontario, Quebec, South Africa).
Regional information was gathered, including demographics, economic situation, and CPS responses to COVID-19. A descriptive analysis was conducted to provide an overview of the phenomenon.
Across all of the countries, COVID-19 had a substantial negative impact on the operation of CPSs and the children and families they serve by disrupting in-person services. One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, new reports of CM varied across the regions.11The term regions is used rather than countries because in some countries child protection systems are governed by states or provinces rather than at the national level. In some, the impact of COVID-19 on CPS was low to moderate, while in others, more significant changes created multiple challenges for CPS services.
COVID-19 created a barrier for CPS to access and protect children. The dramatic variance between the regions demonstrated how social, economic and structural contexts impact both CM reports and CPS responses.
The COVID-19 pandemic increased the likelihood of child maltreatment and made already difficult circumstances for children and their families much worse. This increased the significance of the child ...protection system's role in responding to child maltreatment and ensuring children's rights, including their right to a safe life without violence. Unfortunately, accumulating evidence has indicated that the rates of child maltreatment increased during the pandemic.
The current study sought to identify the gaps within child protection responses in various countries during the COVID-19 pandemic and to discover how we can respond to crises in the future while preserving children's rights, including their right to protection from maltreatment.
Five focus groups with a total of 47 professionals working with children from various countries were conducted via Zoom and analyzed using a thematic approach.
Three main themes were identified: 1) gaps in policies, 2) gaps in practice, and 3) professionals' messages to improve policy and practice.
This study emphasizes what was missed in child protection policy and practice, highlighting the continuous neglect of children's needs and voices within policies, practices and guidelines worldwide during the pandemic. Professionals' recommendations for policy and practice are also discussed.
The COVID-19 pandemic created new challenges and barriers for the work of child protection professionals (CPPs) and intensified existing hardships for families and children, increasing the risk of ...child maltreatment. As new restrictions and precautions were implemented by governments worldwide to stop the virus from spreading, CPPs had to adapt to a new reality of working remotely. However, limited research has investigated how remote work impacted CPPs and child protection work and how CPPs handled this alternative work style.
This review aims to address gaps in the research to reveal the creative and effective approaches CPPs developed to overcome the challenges presented by COVID-19, defined as the ‘positive legacy’ of CPPs, particularly in adapting to remote work challenges.
This review was conducted using a scoping review, followed by two rounds of thematic analysis. The scoping review was conducted in six languages: Hebrew, Arabic, French, Portuguese, Spanish, and English.
The first round of thematic analysis found 18 articles relevant to this review. The second round extracted two main themes: 1) the challenges of remote work and 2) overcoming the challenges of no contact.
The findings of this review may be used to inform future strategies for child protection during a pandemic. They also provide an opportunity to rethink the relationship child protection work has with technology to systematically reform current and future protection policies and practices, including outside of a pandemic.
COVID-19 significantly worsened already challenging circumstances for children and their families and globally increased the likelihood of child maltreatment. This risk heightened the urgency of ...child protection professionals in preventing child maltreatment and defending children's rights. The vast and growing body of research on protecting children from child maltreatment during COVID-19 has emphasized practitioners' tremendous difficulty in this arena.
The current international study sought to identify the experiences and responses of child protection professionals to child maltreatment during COVID-19.
Five real-time, virtual focus groups were conducted among professionals who work with children from countries around the globe.
Reflexive thematic analysis was employed to analyze the focus group transcripts.
The participants identified their experiences and challenges in performing their role of protecting children. Additionally, they shared context-adapted and innovative responses to child maltreatment, while emphasizing self-care and their mental health.
The results highlighted that child protection was significantly more challenging during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, they underlined the importance of establishing practices and policies for child protection in crisis times as well as ensuring both children's and professionals' well-being and mental health.
The COVID-19 pandemic led to numerous challenges for child protection professionals (CPPs). However, limited research has investigated the interwoven concepts of coping, resilience, and mental ...distress among CPPs during COVID-19 on a global scale.
This study aimed to explore CPPs' practice, resilience, and mental distress during COVID-19, the relationship between their resilience and mental distress, the global stability of the Multi-System Model of Resilience (MSMR), and how CPPs' resilience varied according to the Human Development Index (HDI).
Data were collected from 420 CPPs in 57 countries across five continents between July and September 2021. Participants completed an online questionnaire on demographics, resilience, mental distress, coping, and perceptions of child protection during the pandemic in their native languages. The analyses compared the countries grouped according to HDI using means comparisons, correlations, and multiple linear regressions. A two-path analysis was also performed to identify variables associated with behavioral resilience engagement and mental distress.
The findings indicated that CPPs' perceptions of COVID-19's impact on child maltreatment varied in correlation with their country's HDI. There were also significant HDI-based differences regarding the perceived opportunity to engage in resilient behavior and its helpfulness. Years of professional experience, internal resilience, and external resilience were shown to be significant predictors of mental distress among CPPs during the pandemic, and resilience mediated how years of experience predicted mental distress.
This study emphasized the importance of experience and internal resilience for CPPs’ psychological well-being. It also provides empirical evidence to support the MSMR theory on a global scale. Additionally, it demonstrates how the perceived changes in child maltreatment during COVID-19 may be associated with regional HDI. Lastly, the opportunities CPPs had to engage in resilient behavior and how much this helped them was associated with regional HDI, but not in the way originally predicted. Study results also hold implications for how practice and policy may be altered to help CPPs cope better during times of crisis and generally.
BACKGROUNDThe COVID-19 pandemic challenged child protection and posed new risks for child maltreatment (CM). Moreover, governmental efforts worldwide prioritized mitigating the spread of the virus ...over ensuring the welfare and protection of families and children. This neglect caused hardship for many vulnerable children, including those in out-of-home care (OOHC), and challenged the functionality of child protective services (CPS). However, only limited research has investigated the impact of COVID-19 on OOHC and CPS and explored how CPS overcame the challenges of helping children in OOHC.OBJECTIVEThis review aims to address this gap in the research to unveil the 'positive legacy' left by CPS in their work with children in OOHC during COVID-19.METHODThis review utilized three stages of analysis, including a scoping review followed by two rounds of thematic analysis. The scoping review was carried out in six languages: English, Hebrew, Arabic, French, Portuguese, and Spanish. The first round of thematic analysis found eight relevant articles for this review. The second round of thematic analysis found three themes related to this paper's aim in the context of COVID-19.RESULTSThree main themes were identified: 1) decision-making and OOHC, 2) difficulties in procedures related to OOHC placement, and 3) handling challenges of OOHC.CONCLUSIONSThe discussion emphasizes the crucial role of preserving children's rights, hearing their voices and needs, and considering their safety and well-being when planning policies and practices to protect them. It also emphasizes society's responsibility to acknowledge contextual factors in child protection.
We know little about youths' perception of child abuse, especially in a cultural context. This study aims to probe into the perceptions of Israeli Arabs and Jewish youth when it comes to child abuse. ...The study delves into perceptions of severity level and examines youth's explanations to offenders' behavior. Yet another facet of the study ventures to unravel what are the encouraging versus inhibiting factors that affect disclosure (or lack thereof) and, once a decision to disclose has been taken, whom to disclose to. The method used was quantitative. The sample comprised 1,475 participants, 50.1% of whom (n=739) were Jewish, and 49.9% ( n=736) were Arabs. The ages of the participants ranged from 9 to 14, and in terms of their gender, 49.8% were males (n=734), and 50.2% (n=741) were females. Data collection tapped four instruments: 1. The Perception of Child Maltreatment Scale (PCMS) is a questionnaire designed for children in order to assess 34 abusive behaviors towards children (Fakunmoju & Bammeke, 2013), 2. Children’s Attribution of Abusive Behaviors Questionnaire - contains 18 items meant to assess children’s attributions of abusive behaviors based on the Explanation for Abusive Behaviors Scale (Lev-Wiesel, 1999), 3. Disclosure Preference Figures Questionnaire (Lev-Wiesel & Eisikovits, 2016) is a tool that assesses the preferable versus less preferable figures to disclose abuse to. 4. Encouraging versus Discouraging factors that affect disclosure (Lev-Wiesel et al., 2014) is a tool that assesses which factors are conducive to disclosure when it comes to child abuse. The results demonstrate that in both cultures youth perceive child abuse as severe, with some differences between the two groups in terms of the severity they attach to disparate types of abuse. The findings revealed that participants perceived the following behaviors as the severest: 1) ”Hitting a child with a belt, stick or other object so that it leaves a bruise” (physical abuse); 2) “Leaving a baby or young child alone in a car” (neglect); 3) "Children spread embarrassing photos of another child over the internet and/or by cell phone" (sexual abuse); 4) “A parent or parent figure allowing a child to engage in labor/work activities (that are harmful or dangerous to health/well-being for money" (labor exploitation abuse); 5) "A parent or parent figure asking a child to touch his genital area" (sexual abuse). In regard to the perception of severity assigned to different types of abuse according to ethnicity, the findings show that Jewish respondents perceive physical abuse and emotional abuse as more severe than Arab respondents did, whereas Arabs perceived neglect as severer form of abuse in comparison with the severity Jews ascribed to neglect. A deeper look into differences regarding specific behaviors in each type of abuse revealed that Jews perceived sexual abuse in cyberspace as the most severe behavior, whereas Arabs perceived neglect as the most severe. Although the majority of participants agreed to none of the possible explanations, findings revealed that about 30% of the participants attributed the abuse to the abuser’s indifference to the needs or emotions of the victimized child, or else attributed the abusive behavior to acceptable disciplinary and educational measures. Differences between the groups were also found in the respective ways whereby they rationalized the abuse. Youth in this study prefer to disclose abuse to family member figures, significant differences were found between the groups in terms of the level of willingness to disclose. The data from this study will go a long way toward understanding youth perception of child abuse and can help professionals and communities in tackling that issue against diverse cultural backdrops.
PDF
