Emotional harm and neglect: the legal response

Abstract

This paper reports on a study of the extent to which child protection applications brought to the Melbourne Children's Court in Victoria, Australia, were based on emotional/psychological harm or neglect of a child and what factors were presented as evidence of harm or neglect. The study examined records of 208 court‐ordered pre‐trial conferences heard in the court between February and July 2002. What was found was that, although cases involving emotional abuse have increased in terms of child protection applications, they remain cases that are difficult to decide. While in 1998/9 emotional harm was a ground in 25.7% of child protection matters completed in the Family Division of the Children's Court of Victoria, legal decision‐makers are reluctant to make a finding of child abuse in these cases because there is less accuracy in the determination of emotional harm and negligible legal criteria available to guide decision‐making. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Correlates of Substantiated Emotional Maltreatment in the Second Canadian Incidence Study

“…However, when a report involved two or more forms of maltreatment, the likelihood of there being at least one PMT was greater (2.73 versus 1.58 children per 1,000). As in other studies, these data suggest that cases of PMT are detected nearly twice as often in conjunction with situations of neglect and physical or sexual abuse (Carleton 2006;Chamberland et al 2005;Glaser and Prior 1997;Higgins and McCabe 2001;Sheehan 2006).…”

“…These cases are more chronic, associated with emotional impact, but not with physical harm, and are more often observed when other forms of maltreatment are also present (Carleton 2006;Gibbons, 1995, as cited in Wilding andThoburn 1997;Glaser and Prior 1997;Hamarman and Bernet 2000;Sheehan 2006). It appears that these cases are not viewed as isolated incidents but have persisted for a certain period; these children are already known to social workers, and are the subjects of prior reports (Chamberland et al 2005;Glaser and Prior 1997;Wilding and Thoburn 1997).…”

“…Several studies, though not always conclusive, have documented the characteristics of children who are victims of PMT. Some studies have found that victims of PMT tend to be older children (Chamberland et al 2005;Glaser and Prior 1997), while Sheehan (2006) has found that victims of PMT are more likely to be younger children. Doyle (1997), however, did not observe any particular characteristic among child victims of PMT, like gender, temperament, or psychopathology.…”

“…Family dynamics and structures are often fragile compared to the population at large. In addition, families marked by PMT are often single-parent homes or have parents who are engaged in conflicts over child custody (Chamberland et al 2005;Sheehan 2006). They are also more frequently typified by the presence of a step-father (Madu 2003), and the loss of a family member (Doyle 1997;Sheehan 2006) or many members (Doyle 1997;Sedlack et al 2010).…”

“…Analyses of situations involving youth protection investigations show several parental vulnerability indicators, such as high proportions of addiction, mental health or psychiatric problems, criminal behaviour, cognitive deficiency, and problems of physical health and social isolation among aggressors treated for PMT (Chamberland et al 2005;Doyle 1997; Glaser and Prior 1997;Khamis 2000;Moore and Pepler 2006;Sheehan 2006). Studies of families in which children experience PMT have also shown that parents are not giving enough support to their children (Khamis 2000), that they have a propensity to feel hurt easily, and to disapprove of the child's expression of such negative emotions as anger or sadness (Walling et al 2007).…”