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New Research Adds Knowledge on Resiliency 

• New research reveals the importance of environments that encourage the healthy development of all people through caring and support, high and positive expectations, and opportunities for active participation and contribution.
• Recommended books include:
• Fostering Resiliency in Kids: Protective Factors in the Family, School and Community
• Vulnerable but Invincible
• Overcoming the Odds: High Risk Children from Birth To Adulthood
• The Resilient Self: How Survivors of Trouble Families Rise Above Adversity
• Legacy of the Heart: The Spiritual Advantages of a Painful Childhood
• Climbing Jacob’s Ladder: The Enduring Legacy of African American Families
• Children in Danger: Coping with the Consequences of Community Violence
• No Place to Be a Child: Growing Up in a War Zone
• The Challenge to Care in Schools: An Alternative Approach To Education
• The Challenge to Care
• Voices from the Inside: A Report on Schooling from the Inside of the Classroom
• Moral Leadership: Getting to the Heart of School Improvement
• Winning Teachers/Teachers Winners

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Harvard Mental Health Letter. Biology of Child Maltreatment June 2005

• Disturbances at a critical time early in life may exert a disproportionate influence, creating the conditions for childhood and adult depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress symptoms.
• Apart from heredity and recent stress, child maltreatment is the most common predictor of major depression in adults.
• Abused children may exhibit these symptoms because their bodies and brains have ‘learned’ that they cannot count on protection and solace in distressing situations.

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Britannica online “Child Abuse” Search Result 6/27/2005

• The web’s best sites include:
• Child Abuse Prevention Center: provides fact sheets on various forms of child abuse and advice for parents.
• Prevent Child Abuse America: includes information on its programs, publications and events.
• Child Abuse Prevention Association: includes a history, services offered, and professional advice for parents.
• Child Abuse Prevention Network: provides information and services to professionals and volunteers who work with abused and neglected children.
• The Child Abuse and Neglect Database Instrument System

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Working with the Abused Child in the Classroom

• The classroom teacher can play a significant role in the rehabilitation of an abused child by acknowledging but not dwelling on the situation and then creating a supportive and safe environment for the child.
• The child needs security, structure, identity, consistency and predictability, sense of belonging, intimacy in appropriate ways, approval, enhancement of positive self-concept, and support for family

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American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) Child Sexual Abuse

• The child of five or older who knows and cares for the abuser becomes trapped between affection or loyalty for the person, and the sense that the sexual activities are terribly wrong.
• If the child tries to break away from the sexual relationship, the abuser may threaten the child with violence or loss of love.
• A child who is the victim of prolonged sexual abuse usually develops low self-esteem, a feeling of worthlessness and an abnormal perspective on sexuality. The child may become withdrawn and mistrustful of adults, and can become suicidal.
• Child sexual abusers can make the child extremely fearful of telling, and only when a special effort has helped the child to feel safe, can the child talk freely.
• Parents should stress the abuse was not the child’s fault and should seek a medical exam and psychiatric consultation.

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AACP Responding to Child Sexual Abuse: What to Say, What to Do

• What to say:

• Encourage the child to talk freely
• Show that you understand and take seriously what the child is saying
• Assure the child that they did the right thing in telling.
• Tell the child that they are not to blame for the sexual abuse.
• Offer the child protection and promise that you will promptly take steps to see that the abuse stops.
• What to do:
• If the abuse is within the family, report it to the local Child Protection Agency. If the abuse is outside of the family, report it to the police or district attorneys office.
• Parents should consult their pediatrician or family doctor.
• The child should also have a psychiatric evaluation.

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Sex abuse leaves kids powerless

• A child molester or rapist nearly always has been molested or abused as a child
• Sexual abuse also is about power and powerlessness. Researchers say the molester is trying to regain power he lost as a child by taking it sexually from another child.
• Child molesters are secretive and often delude themselves that they care for the child. They think they are sharing affection not harming them.
• The molester ‘grooms’ his victims, gaining their cooperation and silence through bribes, attention and warnings.

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Romance starts with lie, ends in tragedy

• Jonathon Keller had admitted to having a sexual relationship with a girl who was a minor, under the age of consent, he was marked a sex offender so he feared that he would be abuse while serving his sentence.
• He shot himself in the driveway of the girl’s Centralia home.
• His mother believes he committed suicide because he was afraid that he would be sent to prison for violating his probation.

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How to Handle Disclosure

• Listen.
• Remain calm.
• Believe the child.
• Thank the child for telling.
• Assure the child of your support.
• Don’t try to get details from the child. (C.P.S. will get the details.)
• Do not confront the accused offender.
• Call the authorities.
• Outline to the child what will happen.

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Reporters Rights under the RCW

• You may not be sued for making a report as long as that report was made in good faith.
• You may report anonymously but an anonymous report will carry less weight in the judicial system than a report with a named reporter.
• Under no circumstances should CPS or law enforcement tell the parent that you made the report.
• You may not be harassed at home or at work.
• You may not be threatened physically or verbally.

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Sample CPS Report Form

• Helpful form to document information about the child and the incident.

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Second Sample CPS Report Form

• This form would be useful for documenting C.P.S. reports.

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Documentation

• Keep a set of personal notes or a documentation notebook. These notes are not part of the permanent official school record.
• Develop a form to record each incidence.
• Examples include: 3x5 cards, spiral notebooks or three-ring binders

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Parents work to discipline without damage

• Legally, it’s abuse if it leaves more than a transitory mark—a red mark that fades quickly would not signify abuse, but a bruise, welt or cut that remains would.
• Some of the problems parents face today include: being uneducated about handling their children and isolation from extended family that no longer live together.
• Parent support groups are helpful for struggling parents.

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Understanding and reporting child abuse: legal and psychological perspective: Part two: emotional abuse and secondary abuse

• Emotional abuse is ‘a repeated pattern of parent or caregiver behavior that conveys to a child that he or she is worthless, flawed, unloved, unwanted, endangered, or only of value to meet someone else’s needs.

• Secondary abuse is when a child observes abusive behavior acted out between parents.

• Emotional abuse and secondary abuse of children are increasingly recognized within the mental health and legal professions as at least as damaging to adjustment as physical abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect.
• Emotional and secondary abuse is more difficult for mandated reporters to recognize and document, and reporting laws are problematic.
• Emotional abuse signs include: extremes of behavior, inappropriately adult or inappropriately infantile, delays in physical or emotional development, suicide attempts, or reports of lack of attachment to the parent.
• Parental behaviors that could be signs of emotional abuse include: regular blaming, belittling, or berating the child; being unconcerned about the child or overly rejecting the child.
• Predictors of domestic violence include poverty, substance abuse, depression, and a history of domestic violence within ones family of origin.
• Children exposed to domestic violence also appear to suffer deficits in cognitive functioning.

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 Child Abuse and neglect: A Practical Guide for Professional School Counselor

• An average of three out of five children die every day as a result of child abuse (Prevent Child Abuse America, 2003)
• It is estimated that at least five students have been or will be reported as being possible victims of abuse in a typical teachers classroom per year in the United States.
• School counselors have a moral, ethical and legal obligation to students who have experienced abuse.
• If counselors observe signs of possible abuse, they must communicate their perceptions to the student and receive clarification concerning their interpretations before proceeding in reporting.
• Before beginning any counseling relationship, the professional school counselor should explain the limits of confidentiality to his or her students.
• The most effective way to prevent child abuse is to support parents and families, while providing parents with the skills and resources necessary to become healthy individuals and parents who foster effective family functioning.

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Thurston Community Network: Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect Resources and Outside Links

• Helpful resources for those residing in Thurston County.

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Child Abuse Exam

• Turned in.