Why is it important we have thr proper research on child abuse?

All through out histoy child abuse has always be apart of society. There is no denying that it is still an issue in an American today. Back in the 90s there were more than 18 million cases reported on child abuse to social services. That would also include about 2,000 child deaths reported annually. Furthermore more there were more than 100,00 that were reports of serious injury made towards a child. Unfortunately all those counts of abuse still limited our knowledges of the long term effects a child undergoes for the remainder of their lives. These reports brought to light the little we know about how society interacts with each other and how it leads to the abuse.

It is safe to mention that we as a society still have an issue with trying to figure out what the root cause of this issue is. There are services required for children faced with neglect and abuse, but the services are very costly. Services that are known as conscleing, medicare, foster care and special education. It was estimated that back in the 90s these services cost the U.S more than 500 million dollars. Another daming fact was that child neglect was in direct correlation with juvenile delinquency, violence and substance abuse meaning the requirement of further services is needed to combat this issue.

Conducting research on child abuse and neglect is not an easy task to do. As of now we are in the shadows of what we know about the cause of child maltreatment. We are not as informed of the consequences of child maltreatment. The information we have does not always match the reports we have under our data. As you can tell abuse of any kind is usually reported due to suspicious meaning the person committing the crime is trying to conceal evidence as much as possible. By the time authorities find out about the abuse it is usually too late or as matter of fact it is extremely difficult to treat a victim someone who has been through such trauma. They then deem a danger to society and could grow into troubled adults. But still there is little known knowledge of child maltreatment and what the cause of it is. Little is known on what presidoses adult to commit this abuse as well.

5 reasons research should be prioritized

1.The information that is obtained will positively impact individuals with social disorders and shed light to their issues. The research that is obtianed will prove people who have expericanced child abuse and neglect directly correlates with adult who have behavior diorders. This would include individuals who have mental impairments, poor academic skills, depression, substance abuse, sexual deviancy, delinquency, and criminal violence.

This would then mean that the many issues that come along with child abused can be treatable. All these issues can be avoided and treated at a timely manner in order to get the best results. This research will prove that it can attack this issue head on and help prevent many mental issues an individual suffers through neglect. They will be able to function like a healthy individual as they should and deserve.

2.Society has had research done on many other topics. Topics such as cancer, burn victims, and desises. This research would only be fair to do in order to help bring justice to those who have had to suffer and have already suffered. It would only be right that we put in our best efforts to combat child neglect and abuse. Many of these victims are not given the chance to shed light on their trumas. Politicians and other organizations seem to focus more on other agendas than this silent killer. It is time to stop keeping this issue overlooked. It is funny how a documenty on child abuse can strick the nerve of the public and on top of that they seem absoulty shocked becasue it is almost hard to believe child abuse happens in this country. But the truth is, it has been happening all along right under our noses. And this is why light has to be shed on child abuse and neglect. It seems to be something we ignore and it cannot be ignored any longer.

3.This research can have an economic benefit This is because we will be spending less on the resources to the services required to treat child maltreatment such as the medicare, fostering, learning services, and juvenile delinquency.

Economic cost is another factor to consider when conducting research on child maltreatment. Research needs to be aware of how the benefits of research will impact the cost of services and how it will lower the money spending we make as a country. Studies have already shown that 20 percent of minors that undergo 2 year treatments roughly cost the U.S 10 million dollars annually. And if a child is faced with lifelong disabilities due to child maltreatment then it will cost the U.S an additional 5 million.

4.Research can help improve the protocols agencies and legal services provide to victims. Important people like legislators, government officials and judges have to make decisions everyday. It is not always easy to do what’s best when we do not know enough. With the evidence that is obtained this can potentially make it alot easier to move forwards because then we are confident in our decious based on hard research. This both benefits the law makes and the children who very much deserve it.

5. Finally this research will help fight the root cause of child neglect and abuse. Meaning it could help prevent future incendents of child abuse. We can intervine and completly diminish the possiblites of another child abuse case. The next generation of children will have a bright future with one less major factor interfering with their success.

How the research must be approached

There has been a long battle through out the decades on obtianing viable resdearch that could be used to combate child abuse and neglect. Yes there many forms of research out there like journls, Funding programs, socieities where child abuse is there main focus but ultimaly they are not deemed accurate enough to use for studies where the imformation can be taken and used to develope proper protocls when it comes to child maltreatment. In research there must use of proper methods and stable control. Attention to detail is extremely important. One cannot just jump around in topics like much of those organizations I mentioned before. Test and study is a must, and on top of that there must also be a record of all the information obtained. Also the records must be well documented in a manner that is professional and well formatted for the research. And so when conduciton research on child abuse, the way it is approuched it must be proper in its format just like any other research. The research of childmaltreatment should be approuched in a manner that address and looking in the social economial factors that are in involved with vitimes of child abuse. Mean that the researcher cannot only look into the one indiviual victim of child abuse but they must also look into the parents, fmaily members, neehbors, teachers, care takers and anyone that is involbved with the child in any way or form. The researcher must also focus on the differences between children who have had hand full of neglect done to them against the children who have had to deal with abuse for most of their life. Because of course every case is unique in its own way and that is why I mentioned that attention to the slightest detail is extremely important.This foucs on the detail will then help bring to light the most common barrairs presented in child abuse and neglect while also highlighting the least common things seen when dealing with abuse cases. Therefore no child will be overlooked and will have a higher chance of having a solution that is perfectly tailored for them.

Furthermore, the approud to this research will include making sure to look into the perspective of social economic factors, meaning how society plays a role in child abuse. It will not only look at the people involved with the children of abuse but will look beyond these exterior factors as well. And as I mentioned before about detail the research will look into how a child is affected through their developmental stages. Children who are at a young and vulnerable stage of life are especially prone to developing issues that can stick with them for a lifetime. So being able to focus on not only the effects of abuse on young children under developmental stages is extremely important. Of course nothing will be excluded, meaning researchers will look at the positive and negative sides of every factor. It is a common knowlage to researchers that dysfuantinal families play a major factor in child abuse and neglect. Therefore research can not only be surrounded with just variables. The research needs to have a single agenda that is looked at thoroughly. This attention to detail will more than ever bring great information that is absolutely accurate.

Vocabulary and Categories

There are four main vocanular words that define child abuse and negelct.The vocabualy words is physical abuse. The words in themselves are self explanatory, but what is means is that a child had been physically injured. This means the child has experiences purposely hurt by an adult and or has been punished to an excessive amount. The child may be in constant fear that their abuser is always on the verge of physically harming them. This then can promote constant stress on the child, one who is not equipped to deal with those kinds of emotions at such a vulnerable stage. The next kind of abuse under the catagory of child abuse is child neglect. This form of abuse is actually very common. Child neglect means the caretaker of the child is failing to meet the needs of the child. Meaning not being able to provide food, shelter, healthcare, affection and supervision. Child neglect is something that can lay under the radar because it is not always easily detectable. Whereas physical abuse can be visible because marks are left on a child’s body, the same can be the same for child neglect. A Lot of the time the caretakers or parents may have mental disabilities that cause them to neglect their child. Disabilities such as depression, hormonal imbalances and maybe even drug abuse and alcohol dependencies. These disabilities can cause the caretaker to have an impaired judgement causing them to neglect their child more easily. The third type of abuse is emotional abuse. Emotional abuse involves mentailly abuse a child. This includes constantly making negative comments towards a child, telling them they are worthless, making them feel like they are worthless, ignoring them, or even exposing them to negative images that can damage their mind and cause confusion. Again unlike physical abuse the signs are not as easily spotted. Fianlly, the last form of abuse is sexual abuse.A child that experiances child abuse is up for a very complex issue. Sexual abuse can promte a child to feel ashamed of themselves and self loathing. It is important to point out the sexual abuse does not always mean have physicall contact. Eposing a child to adualy nudities would also be considsidered sexual abuse. With sexaul absue a child might begin to develop signs of depression and feelings of guilt. This event can negatively impact their future relationships. Seeing that their trust has been broken by another human being makes it extremely difficult to form healthy relationships. Another thing about sexual abuse is that children find it hard to come forward about thier abuser. They find it hard because they might not always get the help they need if they do decide to come forward. They might be afraid no will believe them or they might be afraid that there will be serious consequences made toward them if they do come forward. It is not always easy for someone to open up about this event, and there have been cases of children falsely reporting, but nevertheless, the accusations should be taken very seriously.

These four categories under research will have their own individual research done. First the research will help come up with ways of how a child or an adult who has suffered from child abuse can combat the issues that were developed due to abuse. Next, the research will help pinpoint where the issue was first developed. Third there will be known factors of prevention, meaning how can we as a society change our way of being in order to combat this issue and prevent it. Next there will be a accurate imformtaon of what the negative effects of child abuse are. And lastly researchers will know of better ways to help treat a child based on their particular form of abuse. Therefore whatever category the child falls under there will be hard known facts on how to combat the issue in great detail. Unfortunately we are still in the shadows of how a child is affected under all four categories. We are unaware of the common risk factors and the rare risk factors. So knowing what intervention to provide a child is still very vague.

All the research we have is very limited, therefore the interventions we provide are probably out of date. This study like many other studies is very complex. The mere fact that we still have to continue further research for this particular point out that we as a society are easy to throw important issues under the carpet. We tend to focus on only a few important issues at a time, Furthermore, the research will demand many years of study and maybe even decades to see as we are very behind. It is quite disappointing to also mention that of the agencies who do manage abused children many don’t have as much of a desire to demand more research that would greatly benefit them.

It is easy to say that within the last few decades there has not been enough demand to provide research on child maltreatment. The forms of abuse that parents do to their child is quite vague on what is considered abused and what is not. We are uncertain on whether to not consider the characteristics of parenting behavior as neglect. We are also uncertain if the environmental factor that a child is in is neglect. Finally we are not sure if a child falls under a multiple similar categories if they should be put under the same intervention.

Prevention and interventions

For many decades the goal of inervetion in cases of child abuse was to adress problematic behaviors a child demostrates. The goal was not to focus on all the vulnerabilities but to address only a handful of symptoms that seems to affect others rather than to truly help a child. In the recent years, researchers have begun to examine variables which can help the child in the best possible way. Such as trying to enforce particular behaviors that promote a development of healthy relationships. The settings that these enforcements are placed are usually in family and foster parenting settings. The goal of interventions is to induce healthy and positive behavior that a child can harness and meanitain.

Programs

Programs that target parenting

The main focus of this program would focus on the practices and parenting skills that help reduce the maltreatment of children. There will be prevention that focuses on the community, parenting and a child’s well being. The research has developed a way to help target high risk families who are more likely to neglect their children and have begun to interview almost immediately in order to prevent further damage. These families are usually located in areas where poverty is high as well as their crime rate.

There are four main strategies in place to help prevent child maltreatment. The first is having a social worker visit the home as much as possible to make sure all guidelines are being followed. The next intervention would be to provide imformational programs that inform the parent on how to parent and prevent child abuse form happening in their home.The third would be impilcate communtiy based programs that help the prevention of child abuse. And lastly would be to make sure sure hospitals are well informed on how to prevent and manage a child who could be neglected.

This effort to target families and communities is one of the best ways to combat child maltreatment. The families are the foundation of the developing youth so it is only right we make them our number one priority.

Programs that target communities in particular

We all know that humans are shaped by their environment, and what they see in their environment can shape them to the core of their being. The family could be doing a good job at raising their child but that does not always protect them from what’s right outside of their door. It could be the school they go to, the neighbors, and the level of crime that can ultimately impact a child for worse. That is why having a community based program is extremely important because it can make all the difference. Acorrding to research sexual abuse is very common in commuties. So what this program has done is to incorpate programs in school that talk about sexual abuse and how to prevent it. Although the program has done a lot of good at educaiton adolences on the secual abuse we are still uncertian whether they are entirely effective. This is because a child may be experiancing sexual abuse by someone who a trusted family member or freind. We are still in the dark on who to assure the prevention of sexual abuse if it is done by relative or trusted friend. Although the solution to that problem would be to extend the program even after school hours and add more informative ways to educate the child.

Conclusion

In our current times we are stil in the dark on the the effectivness of the the perental programs, the community programs, sexual abuse prevention programs. Many of the programs are interfered with by errors of approach or child fail to meet children criterias. Another issue is that not all of the parents participate in these programs that help prevent child maltreatment, therefore evidence is lacking. A Lot of the times the parents are unwilling to change their behavior and that proves damaging to the children. They lack the willpower to make the effort to change, because as we know change is a gradual thing that has to be consistent. Furthermore if the families are in an area with a lot of violence and crime the change can be even more challenging.

It is important to make these programs mandatory in order to help this cause for the better. We have been battling this same battle for far too long. What makes this challenging to implement is that there are far too many factors that come to play when it comes to implementing these programs. There are also many other programs researchers are interested in dabbling with. This means that when true research is being conducted is must be conducted in a manner that is rigorous. It needs to be done in a way that addresses many and any variable that comes about. It is also important to start to look for ways that compliment the negative behaviors children exhibit. A child is only reacting to what has been done to them and we all know that it is not their fault for feeling their feelings. Yes we are still in the dark about child maltreatment but that only leaves more room for more change and viable knowledge on the subject. As I mentioned before in the beginning of my paper, research has been done on many other different topics in the past. Yes it is challenge but it is one that can and will bring positive change for the children of this world. With constant consistency and a focus to attack the object it will ultimately result in a light shined on the shadow that has been dark for far too long.