Suchergebnisse

In this special issue, innovative research teams expanded work on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns on child maltreatment by assessing these effects on treatment and service delivery following maltreatment, on the professionals responsible for identification and treatment, and on the systems responsible for oversight and instruction. One theme that emerged across these studies concerned challenges faced by professionals as they attempted to evaluate families and provide service and support. Organizational leadership was crucial in helping these professionals navigate challenges in a positive and productive manner. A second theme concerned remote service delivery. Findings suggested that remote maltreatment assessments, treatment, and court procedures all worked to some degree. Thus, despite the massive social disruption caused by the pandemic and lockdowns, parents, professionals, and systems were able to adapt and address core needs of children and families. In future work, it may be important to consider how these findings and their implications vary depending on the type of maltreatment children experienced. Doing so would allow for more nuanced understanding of the consequences of significant national and global crises on child maltreatment and would enable clearer recommendations regarding how best to protect children and support families during such events.

Parents play a critical role in the progression and outcomes of juvenile dependency (child welfare court) cases. Yet, very little is known about these parents' knowledge, attitudes, and experiences. We examined legal understanding and attitudes among 201 parents involved in ongoing dependency cases in California and Florida via semi-structured, in-person interviews. We expected parents' understanding to be low and attitudes to be negative, particularly among parents of color and low SES parents. We expected greater dependency understanding to be related to more positive justice attitudes, and procedural and distributive justice attitudes to be indistinguishable in this population. Findings partially confirmed expectations. Parents' understanding of the system was low, especially among parents of color and less educated parents. Parents felt less than satisfied about the fairness of procedures and decisions. However, procedural and distributive justice attitudes were distinguishable. Finally, and unexpectedly, parents' knowledge and attitudes were negatively related. The consistently low levels of knowledge across CA and FL suggest the critical need to increase parental knowledge. It is also important to promote fair court procedures and decision-making to improve parents' attitudes about procedural and distributive justice, which were found to be distinct and important factors among parents navigating juvenile dependency cases.

Given the association between child maltreatment and a host of negative behavioral consequences, there remains a need to continue to identify mechanisms underlying this association as a means of improving intervention efforts. The present study examined one potential mechanism, namely, disengagement coping. We asked 6- to 17-year-old maltreated ( n = 249) and comparison ( n = 133) youth questions about emotional experiences that induced sadness and anger, strategies they used to cope with those emotions, and behavioral functioning (i.e., behavioral problems and aggression). Maltreated adolescents reported higher levels of behavioral problems and aggression relative to comparison adolescents, and adolescents who disengaged from emotional situations reported more behavioral problems relative to those who did not disengage. Tests of mediation suggested that, for adolescent-age youth, part of the association between maltreatment status and behavioral problems was explained by disengagement. In children, maltreatment was not associated with disengagement or behavioral problems. Results have implications for understanding age-related differences in the emotional and behavioral consequences of maltreatment.