Child Maltreatment Research, Policy, and Practice for the Next Decade Workshop Summary (2012) / Chapter Skim
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3 Recognizing and Assessing Child Maltreatment
3 Recognizing and Assessing Child Maltreatment
Pages 15-24
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From page 15... ...
Two speakers at the workshop discussed the progress that has been made in recognizing and assessing child maltreatment from both a physical and a mental health standpoint. MEDICAL AND PSYCHOSOCIAL ASSESSMENT AND DIAGNOSIS OF CHILD ABUSE AND NEGLECT The first epidemiological study of child maltreatment appeared in an article titled "The Battered-Child Syndrome" (Kempe et al., 1962)
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"Many of us know physicians who have made the wrong diagnosis and have sent abused children home, and sometimes those children come back with more serious injuries due to abuse or even die from an abusive injury. We take these problems very seriously." An additional problem cited by Leventhal is that some so-called experts in court continue to deny that abuse has occurred and propose specious theories of causation, such as vitamin deficiencies or reactions to vaccines.
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. In Connecticut, for example, MDTs can include prosecutors, CPS workers, physicians, forensic interviewers, social workers, mental health treatment staff, and school social workers.
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Finally, individual family variables have received a moderate amount of research. These variables include domestic violence, substance abuse, and the mental health of parents.
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Who has access to them? " Also, Joy Osofsky of the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center recommended doing research in cooperation with CACs, which Leventhal labeled an excellent idea.
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"Doing mental health types of assessments for the purposes of service planning is a well-accepted operation within the child welfare system." Assessment frameworks point to multiple sources of information, including the child, siblings, parents, other caregivers, teachers, family members, and peers. The "gatherers" of information include departments of social services, guardians ad litem, forensic interviewers, medical providers, mental health providers, victim advocates, law enforcement, and
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Targets for information gathering include family and social history, abuse history, other trauma history, anxiety, depression, behavior problems, delinquency, substance abuse, academic performance, social functioning and support, and family functioning and support. Outcomes of Assessments Despite the attention devoted to assessments, not much research has examined whether they improve outcomes for children, particularly mental health outcomes.
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Future Research on Assessment Saunders concluded by listing a number of critical research questions, many of which involve implementation: Within the context of frontline child welfare practice, how well do current (and proposed) assessment tools and procedures identi fy children with particular problems who likely need mental health services?
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From page 23... ...
Does greater coordination of assessment tasks with community resources and the family result in better assessment? Discussion During the discussion session, Clare Anderson from the ACYF pointed to research showing that increased mental health assessment can lead to the increased use of psychotropic medications among children in foster care.
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