Physical Abuse

Earlier this week, the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families and Children’s Bureau released the 2014 edition of their annual Child Maltreatment report. The report summarizes and analyzes data provided by the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS), a federally sponsored data collection effort that prompts analysis of state child abuse and neglect information.

A pair of recent studies asserts that psychological abuse may be as harmful as other forms of child maltreatment, including physical and sexual abuse. Although researchers describe emotional abuse of children as widely prevalent, it has not always been seen as serious or as damaging as other forms of maltreatment.

By Beth Cortez-Neavel Texas is taking serious steps toward using predictive data analytics, or “big data,” to prevent child deaths due to abuse and neglect. Not only are state officials finally catching on that child maltreatment is a public health issue, there are three new state-led efforts to curtail child deaths and maltreatment by using data to pinpoint specific warning signs at different community levels.

By Melody Ann Owen Vera, an Indian residential school survivor, describes years of fear and desperation growing up. In her words, the experience left her with a “lack of communication skills and the closeness learned was not healthy.”

This article is adapted from an earlier piece that ran in the San Jose Mercury News. By Adam Pertman and Graham Wright It is heartening to hear that California’s Legislature may finally address the chronic overuse of psychotropic medications for children in foster care in that state, a problem that unfortunately exists from coast to coast.