What I Know

Here are notes from a lecture in my Introduction to Human services course dealing with abuse and in particular Child Abuse and Elder Abuse. There are also many definitions that are covered in this lecture. We are getting close to the end of this course and I am thinking about writing my lecture notes for a few psychology courses I had along with my human services courses. There are this article and one more for my intro course then I will share my Abnormal psychology lecture notes. Abnormal psychology was a fun and very interesting course for really anyone to take or just read.

Child Abuse

There are four types of abuse. They are physical, sexual, neglect, and emotional maltreatment. Factors that contribute to child abuse and there are nine of them and they are as follows: 1.) economic problems leading to poverty; 2.) social isolation or a lack of support system; 3.) unrealistic expectations about abilities and development; 4.) substance abuse; 5.) maltreatment of the parent during childhood; 6.) lack of education about alternative ways of punishment and learning proper discipline techniques; 7.) low impulse control; 8.) inability to cope with stress; and finally 9.) marital problems.

There are special risks for a higher risk of abuse and these risks are that children born prematurely and with congential problems create stress on the parents in learning how to care for them. Children who are the result of an unplanned and/or unwanted pregnancy. There are also children who do not meet parental expectations. These are some of the special reasons when to look out for signs of abuse no matter what kind.

Some Definitions of the Kinds of Abuse

Physical abuse is the physical act or the threatening or verbal use of language to harm a child by a caretaker(giver). Physical and mental injury to a child in the forms of beating, slapping, burning, shaking, and throwing are physical and if the parent or caregiver is yelling or swearing this is a form of verbal abuse that at times accompanies the physical abuse of one child and the mental abuse of other children if there are any present.

Battered Child Syndrome is when children are continually subjected to physical abuse with built in excuses. We need to look for signs like many visits to different doctors and emergency rooms that may be hidden. Human service workers are mandated to report suspected abuse. Sexual abuse is shown as any childhood sexual experience that interferes with the child's potential. It also interferes with the child's healthy development. Examples are fondling the child or having intercourse or the exploitation and the use of pornography. Abusers fall on continuously on the child's self-esteem as well as the elders that face abuse as well. The factors to help stop this could be assertiviness training to teach them how to identify triggers to stop the offender from doing this despicable act or acts.

There is neglect where the caretaker/giver deliberately or completely is inattentive to the child. This permits the child to suffer and fail to provide for the essential needs of the child. Totally ignores the child's needs and not met at all. There is no emotional, intellectual or physical needs met for the child. Signs of this are burns to the child (cigarette burns as an example), drownings, and the child doesn't know what to do to live. This leads to Non-organic failure to thrive which is a condition where there is nothing biologically wrong but the child is below the third percentile in his/her weight class.

There are five (5) types/signs of neglect caused by neglecting parents that are more hard to help because of more despair. Neglect is shown in those experiencing apathy and maybe living in homes with futility syndrome with parents that have given up on life, self and kids. There are impulse ridden behaviors like trouble making appropriate decisions and reacting impulsively. There is a small percentage who are mentally challenged (retarded) that do not comprehend what is needed to do what good parenting is all about. There are reactive/depressive people/parents that are so depressed that they cannot parent adequately, and then there are the people/parents that are psychotic, delusional that there false beliefs will prevent them from parenting adequately.

Emotional maltreatment is long-term psychological consequences that are verbal emotional abuses and emotional neglect or the failure to meet the necessary emotional needs of whomever they are caring for at the moment. The five forms of Emotional maltreatment are rejecting which is when the caregiver refuses the acknowledged child's worth or legitmate their needs. A second form is isolating when the adult cuts the child off from normal social experiences and allows no friends or even grandparent visits, then again there is terrorizing which creates verbal assaults along with fear and terror of various environments. There are two more forms and they are ignoring which deprives the child of any responsiveness or stimulation and corrupting when the adult stimulates the child to engage in antisocial behaviors and gives reinforcement of this deviance. All of these will work against in building good self-esteem goals. This last one could also include the Act of Omission if it did happen it didn't. 86% of injuries due to domestic violence is reported to police. Domestic violence does occur in initimate relationships in the forms of battering and abuse in all its forms. Now there are power issues to deal with and spousal abuse is all about having CONTROL over women who learn passivity and have low self-esteem issues. There are economic issues that can be the problem that could be a trigger to abuse. There is social denial when we deny prevalence of this and their problem in society. Victims are put on trial along with the guilty. Education about the problem and how to solve and stop the problem is learning about the resources open to them and usually victim advocacy is used. In working with children human service workers should work along with Children and Youth Services.

Elder Abuse

There are barriers in reporting and discovering this type of abuse too. The abused elderly are socially isolated from families, the victim may not be seen for medical attention, confined to the home, the elderly may attribute (abuse) bruises and broken bones to natural causes. Also, in this form of abuse there may be missing some cues to the abuse like confusion, forgetting to take medications or not giving/taking them at all and the fear of being removed from the family to a nursing home that may not report the abuse for the fear of retaliation. The elderly do not want to fear shame due to the abuse by their own children and finally the fear having no support. All of this information should be given to the Office on Aging.

What to do for these two groups?

If there are bruises or other injuries or multiple injuries all in various stages in healing one should report this occurence. If there is confusion, over-medicated and sleepliness or excessive weight loss or even dehydration. The human service worker should look into the time periods of the injuries along with when help with treatment is/was sought and when and where treatment takes place. Is there an indication of the older adult is unwanted by the caretaker/giver and is resentful one could begin to use 'respite care programs' that provide services to prevent these events from happening to the older adult.

To be continued Total Situation and Resources for the Human service worker