Child-Maltreatment-Research-L (CMRL) List Serve

Message ID: 8602

Date: 2010-08-27

Author:Jaggers, Terri

Subject:RE: New bulletin: Updated Trends in Child Maltreatment, 2008

I am looking for recent (past 3 years) studies that anyone here might be interested in sharing with FOSTER PARENTS. I am now the Communication Chair for the National Foster Parent Association and Publisher of The National Advocate. Foster Parents are in serious need of current information that aids in their understanding of the maltreated children in which they are caring for. If anyone has anything they feel would be of interest, please let me know! Thanks Terri Jaggers Sam Houston State University ________________________________________ From: bounce-6221079-12712286@list.cornell.edu [bounce-6221079-12712286@list.cornell.edu] On Behalf Of Chaffin, Mark J. (HSC) [Mark-Chaffin@ouhsc.edu] Sent: Friday, August 27, 2010 6:41 AM To: 'Child Maltreatment Researchers' Subject: New bulletin: Updated Trends in Child Maltreatment, 2008 Re: decreases in physical and sexual abuse rates. In studies using law enforcement data, I’ve observed similar declines in child sexual abuse cases involving nonfamilial and unrelated perpetrators. These cases don’t involve CPS policies, and don’t involve family pressures to retain a breadwinner during hard times. The trajectory of the decline in these separate data sets and different kinds of reports (often non-CPS cases) over the past decade and a half parallels what was seen in the CPS report data. In my career in child abuse research, I can’t recall seeing very many research findings that seem to evoke such skepticism as research suggesting that abuse rates are declining. I firmly believe that skepticism about research findings is a good thing, but I’m intrigued about why so much skepticism about this now almost two decade long finding. As a psychologist, the really interesting research question to me is becoming the reaction of our field to this finding, more than any more examination on the finding itself! I recall recently sharing this finding with a person from a rural child advocacy center (who had never heard anything about it) and she was almost in tears with distress. Mark

I am looking for recent (past 3 years) studies that anyone here might be interested in sharing with FOSTER PARENTS. I am now the Communication Chair for the National Foster Parent Association and Publisher of The National Advocate. Foster Parents are in serious need of current information that aids in their understanding of the maltreated children in which they are caring for. If anyone has anything they feel would be of interest, please let me know! Thanks Terri Jaggers Sam Houston State University ________________________________________ From: bounce-6221079-12712286list.cornell.edu [bounce-6221079-12712286list.cornell.edu] On Behalf Of Chaffin, Mark J. (HSC) [Mark-Chaffinouhsc.edu] Sent: Friday, August 27, 2010 6:41 AM To: 'Child Maltreatment Researchers' Subject: New bulletin: Updated Trends in Child Maltreatment, 2008 Re: decreases in physical and sexual abuse rates. In studies using law enforcement data, I’ve observed similar declines in child sexual abuse cases involving nonfamilial and unrelated perpetrators. These cases don’t involve CPS policies, and don’t involve family pressures to retain a breadwinner during hard times. The trajectory of the decline in these separate data sets and different kinds of reports (often non-CPS cases) over the past decade and a half parallels what was seen in the CPS report data. In my career in child abuse research, I can’t recall seeing very many research findings that seem to evoke such skepticism as research suggesting that abuse rates are declining. I firmly believe that skepticism about research findings is a good thing, but I’m intrigued about why so much skepticism about this now almost two decade long finding. As a psychologist, the really interesting research question to me is becoming the reaction of our field to this finding, more than any more examination on the finding itself! I recall recently sharing this finding with a person from a rural child advocacy center (who had never heard anything about it) and she was almost in tears with distress. Mark