Catalogue by titles / Patterns of Child Abuse: How Dysfunctional Transactions Are Replicated in Individuals, Families, and the Child Welfare System
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| ISS/IRC Code | TOOL-PRACTICE ENG-105 |
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| Title | Patterns of Child Abuse: How Dysfunctional Transactions Are Replicated in Individuals, Families, and the Child Welfare System |
| Author | KARSON Michael |
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| General information | |
| Date published/issue | 00-00-2001 |
| Date received | 00-00-0000 |
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| Publisher | The Haworth Maltreatment and Trauma Press, The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, N Y |
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| Page | 247 |
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| ISBN | 0 7890 1588 9 |
| Type of material | Book |
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| Document description |
Commentaries Research |
| Country concerned |
UNITED STATES |
| Index |
Foster-care Substitute-family Kinship-care Family-reintegration Abuse Family-rehabilitation |
| Free text | The author offers an analysis of the complexities that characterize patterns of child abuse in different families. With a historical overview of what has been defined as abuse of children, a review of current research into this issue, as well as specific case illustrations, he brings us to the present-day concerns for children's welfare, and the need for social services to " work within an institutional system that accepts the socially constructed definition of child abuse " which, in a multicultural, multi-ethnic society (such as exists in America), is not always accepted as the norm. The author suggests that, in some cases, the child welfare system is guilty of replicating the abusive patterns by maltreating and punishing dysfunctional families instead of helping to rehabilitate them. He also develops the concept that abusive patterns are reproduced by the abused children in the families that they eventually form themselves. In Chapter 6, The Avoidance of Personal Closeness, the author points out certain "advantages of cross-cultural foster placements" which can give a child a break from the abusive situation he/she was rescued from with people who are different from their original background, therefore helping to put the abusive situation into perspective. He also argues for the availability of foster placements that do not force an intimacy on children who cannot handle it, and questions the value of kinship care for some abused children. Some children who have been severely abused can respond better to tough foster care that is not "ideal" and where they are not expected to fit into a normal pattern of behaviour they cannot handle. |
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