Child physical abuse: Current evidence, clinical practice, and policy directions

Abstract

Child maltreatment continues to be a major problem in the United States. For many of us, it is hard to believe that children may be harmed by those entrusted to love and nurture them. The ambivalence is subtle but pervasive. Among the public, contact with child abuse tends to take the form of occasional media attention to an appalling case of child abuse often characterized by a cycle of intense attention to and outrage at the case stoked by sensational headlines, and followed almost immediately by a lack of follow-up once the media coverage over this particularly gruesome case subsides. For professionals, child maltreatment is more frequently viewed as a complicated social ill affecting the poor and uneducated, instead of a bona fide public health priority defined in the World Health Organization's (2006) position paper as a problem that affects all cultures and sociodemographic groups. This monograph puts a stake in the ground and seeks to confront the gaze aversion head-on using evidence and clinical experience to inform our understanding and our collective approach to policy and practice regarding child physical abuse. The book approach addresses the many factors, some risk related and others protective, that deal with the messy root causes for child maltreatment. As evidence emerges, our approaches to screening, identification, evaluation, response and treatment of child maltreatment need to be appropriately refined. Careful collaboration and handoff to child protection teams and law enforcement officers are essential as well. Ultimately, the prevention of all forms of child maltreatment, including child physical abuse covered in this monograph, is possible but requires us to confront our tendency for gaze aversion and instead insist on a laser-like focus on this problem and the hard work necessary to address its causes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)