Funding for these extra publications is being provided by the Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health under the auspices of the National Child Protection Council, as part of the National Strategy for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect.
Titles you can expect to see this year are: the Transgenerational Nature of Child Maltreatment; Blended Families and Child Maltreatment; Substance Abuse and Child Maltreatment; Psychological Illness and Child Maltreatment; and Issues in the Emotional and Psychological Maltreatment of Children.
Clearing House Bibliographies
There has been a tremendous response to our offer of free bibliographies drawn from the Clearing House databases. In addition to the titles suggested, others frequently requested include: Domestic Violence and Maltreatment; Abuse of Very Young Children; Aboriginal Communities and Maltreatment; Non-English-Speaking Communities and Abuse; Indicators of Maltreatment; Characteristics of Victims; and Ritual Abuse.
Because of the interest shown in this service, the offer is being repeated and extended (see back page of newsletter for details).
This Newsletter features a major article by Clearing House research advisor Adam Tomison on the structure and contents of the National Clearing House Programs Database. Those interested in receiving further information on particular programs described in this article can do so via the form on the back page of the newsletter.
The development of Victoria's Child Abuse Prevention Networks is proceeding. Information is to be sent to community organisations, churches, service clubs, neighbourhood houses, school parent groups and other local groups, about measures that local communities can take to prevent abuse, and inviting community participation in regional Child Abuse Prevention Networks.
The Networks will be linked to the National Prevention Strategy through information flow, and will be kept informed of local and national developments through a bi-monthly newsletter. In order to foster the development of local prevention initiatives, small grants will be available for local projects.
Contact: John Cheshire, Coordinator, Child Abuse Prevention Strategy, Victorian Department of Health and Community Services: Phone (03) 9616 7038.
Parent Advice Line
The Victorian Government has allocated $840,000 over three years for the establishment of a parent advice line. The new service will provide information and advice to parents and children on parenting. In addition to providing immediate, expert and confidential advice, the new service aims to increase awareness and use of appropriate sources of assistance at a local level.
In order to fulfil this objective, the Clearing House, which was initially hosted by the Australian Institute of Criminology, was given four main functions. These were: to act as a repository for material related to child abuse and child abuse prevention; to construct bibliographic databases on child abuse prevention and related topics; to act in an advisory role, providing information on child abuse prevention and related activities; and to fulfil a networking and outreach role.
As part of its overall role the Clearing House was to conduct an ongoing audit of primary and secondary child abuse prevention programs, as well as any relevant research conducted since 1980. In order to carry out this function, two databases were developed in 1993, one for prevention programs and one for associated research.
In 1994, James reported on the first audit of the Prevention Programs and Research databases which had been constructed at the Australian Institute of Criminology (James 1994a). In January 1995, the Australian Institute of Family Studies officially took over as host of the Clearing House on behalf of the National Child Protection Council.
In order to keep the Clearing House databases current, a national mailout campaign was conducted in March 1995 to collect information on current child abuse prevention initiatives. Individuals and agencies who had contributed to the original databases were specifically targeted in the new campaign as a means of assessing the status of entries included in the previous databases set up at the Australian Institute of Criminology.
This article reports on the results of an audit of the new Clearing House Prevention Program database, with particular reference to whether previously identified information deficits have been addressed.
Child abuse prevention is commonly classified into three main types: primary, secondary and tertiary prevention.
Primary prevention is targeted at the community as a whole; such primary programs generally comprise mass media campaigns aimed at both children and adults, or personal safety/protective behaviour programs for children. The aim of primary prevention programs is to stop abuse before it starts (National Child Protection Council Secretariat 1992).
Secondary prevention programs target specific 'at risk' sections of the population. That is, those with special needs or who are in need of greater support, such as young parents, single parents, people with a physical or intellectual disabilities, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Secondary prevention programs can be categorised as enhancing family functioning by providing various forms of family support and, in particular, by increasing parents' and others' knowledge of child development and behavioural expectations.
Tertiary prevention, which in Australia, remains the responsibility of the various States and Territories, refers to prevention initiatives aimed at preventing the recurrence of abuse in those families where children have already been abused.
In Australia, the National Child Protection Council is the national, mandated body with the responsibility for overseeing child abuse prevention by the Federal Government. The Council is particularly concerned with developing primary and secondary child abuse prevention strategies to reduce the incidence of child maltreatment.
The Council recognises that: '... the protection of children is closely linked to the concept of strengthening families. This in turn, is associated with the need for a general change in community attitudes to reflect the value and importance of children, as well as the need for improvements in income, health and housing so that parents' ability to care for children can be enhanced.' (James 1994b, p.6)
The Clearing House Prevention Programs database is constructed from responses to questionnaires sent out to academics, practitioners and community organisations who are involved in child abuse prevention, and/or who are listed on the Clearing House mailing list, and thus can be assumed to have an interest in child abuse and related areas.
Because the Clearing House is reliant upon voluntary responses submitted by the wider community, it is not possible to determine precisely how representative the database is of the current state of child abuse prevention in Australia. It is evident however, that the Clearing House database does not reflect all prevention programs being conducted in Australia.
In order to rectify this, there is an ongoing advertisement of the National Child Protection Clearing House in a number of Australian Institute of Family Studies publications. In addition, whenever Clearing House staff become aware of prevention initiatives not already incorporated into the Clearing House holdings, attempts are made to contact the agency or individual responsible in order to obtain copies of all available information.
Evaluation of the 1993 Prevention Programs database
While based at the Australian Institute of Criminology, the Clearing House collected 120 entries for the Clearing House Prevention Program database. James (1994a) reported that the Prevention Programs database held 33 community education (media campaign) entries, 26 personal safety entries, and 61 family support programs.
Personal safety programs have the aim of educating school-age children to protect themselves from sexual abuse. The programs attempt to involve the children's parents in order to raise community awareness of sexual abuse and to teach parenting skills related to protecting children and detecting signs of abuse (Plummer 1993). Currently the most popular personal safety program is the Protective Behaviours program, which has been adopted extensively across Australia and in some parts of the United Kingdom (Briggs and Hawkins 1994).
Personal safety programs are based on a little known Wisconsin (USA) empowerment program designed by a school social worker (Flandeau West), and initially brought to Australia by the Victoria Police (Briggs and Hawkins 1994). They focus on teaching children to avoid a wide range of potentially unsafe situations, only some of which involve child maltreatment.
Parenting programs are secondary prevention strategies aimed at minimising the likelihood of abuse and neglect by enhancing parenting skills, and increasing parental knowledge of appropriate child development. Family support programs provide counselling and support, such as respite care or a home visiting service, to families who are defined as 'at-risk' of maltreating their child and who are socially isolated (James 1994a). Henceforth, the category 'family support programs' will refer both to parent education and family support programs, for instance, secondary prevention programs.
The primary focus of James' audit of the 1993 Clearing House Prevention Programs and Research databases was an analysis of prevention program evaluations. She found that despite a general acceptance that rigorous evaluation was an essential part of all prevention programs, very few effective evaluations had been done in Australia. (A 'rigorous' evaluation is one designed as a 'true experiment' (Fink and McCloskey 1990), involving pre- and post-test models, and/or matched control and experimental samples.)
In particular, James noted the distinct lack of attention paid to the evaluation of family support/parenting programs in Australia, stating that '... none have been effectively quantified in terms of actually measuring reduction in the incidence of child abuse and neglect ...' (1994a, p.3), despite the quite extensive use of such programs across the nation. In her analysis of the 1993 Research database, James concluded that with a few exceptions, no systematic research had preceded the implementation of primary and secondary prevention programs. In many cases, overseas programs had been adapted for use in Australia without any investigation into the needs of the community for which the program was intended.
Fink and McCloskey (1990) reviewed 13 United States program evaluations recommended by experts and published from 1978 to 1988. Using the 'true experiment' as their criterion, they reported that most of the studies were methodologically sound. That is, the studies had control groups or involved longitudinal research enabling an assessment of program effects on families over time.
However, Fink and McCloskey concluded that the evaluation studies were hampered by a lack of uniform definitions of child maltreatment and of what constituted an 'at-risk' child or family; the studies had not fully measured the impact of programs on the incidence of child abuse and neglect, and had failed to collect data on some of the indicators that were targeted for special attention in the prevention programs themselves. Thus, it was not possible to assess whether specific aspects of family functioning had improved as a result of participation in the project.
Fink and McCloskey contended that without the construction of uniform definitions and accurate measures of child maltreatment, there was no possibility of building on other child abuse prevention evaluation research. It could therefore be concluded that the Australian reliance on international evaluation studies is misplaced, given the limitations noted by Fink and McCloskey (1990).
James (1994a) contended that rigorous evaluation studies: '... should be an essential part of all major child abuse prevention programs. Smaller programs should be encouraged to use similar assessment instruments, so that results can be compared across studies. Scientific program evaluations, published in the professional literature, are an important means of transferring the knowledge and experience gained in the service sector into research'. (James 1994a, p.2)
Analysis of the 1995 Prevention Programs database
A total of 145 individual items are currently stored in the 1995 Prevention Programs database. However, for audit purposes, programs which were able to be classified by more than one program category (for example, as community education and as a family support program), were counted as separate items, giving a total of 165 items. These are presented in Table 1.
It should be noted that rather than incorporate the 1995 responses into the 1993 Prevention Programs and research databases, the Clearing House chose to construct new databases to be used in conjunction with the 1993 data when required.
This decision was taken because of the transitory nature of many of the prevention program and research initiatives. While there are exceptions to the rule, a common trend appears to be for governments and other funding bodies to fund pilot prevention projects, or projects of limited duration.
Once a program is finished, funding is often transferred to new initiatives, rather than to existing programs for funding on an ongoing basis. As a result, many of the 1993 entries were no longer operational in 1995, though in many cases the agencies or professionals who had run the programs were still active in the child abuse prevention field. The new database incorporates updated information on any of the 1993 database entries, where programs had continued to operate.
It was apparent that 11 prevention programs were child support rather than family support programs. These programs included substitute care programs and individual child counselling programs which targeted children without any involvement of their families. It was therefore decided to include a new 'child focused' category to incorporate programs where the focus was almost entirely on the abused or 'at-risk' child.
Offender programs is a growing field of professional action in Australia. Absent from the 1993 Clearing House databases, six offender treatment programs were collected as part of the 1995 database. These had the main aim of preventing the recurrence of sexually or physically abusive behaviour by males.
Of particular note was that four of the six offender programs were specifically involved in preventing further abusive behaviour, or the development of abusive behaviour, by young boys and adolescents. These programs incorporated elements of tertiary prevention (the prevention of reoffending) and secondary prevention (targeting young males at risk of offending).
Overall, the 1995 Clearing House Prevention Programs database contained proportionately fewer primary prevention programs, but more secondary prevention programs (i.e. child focused and family support programs) than were reported in the audit of the 1993 databases. The family support and child focused entries are also broken down to provide the following information on more specific programs:
Classifying programs by type of abuse
The vast majority of prevention programs (117 of 165) are generalist, aimed at addressing all types of child maltreatment. Of the remaining 48 items, physical abuse is specifically targeted in 32 entries (19.4 per cent of total sample); sexual abuse in 24 items (14.5 per cent of total sample). Reading through the programs, it is apparent in some instances that respondents were not always accurate with their classifications of the types of maltreatment their program addressed.
Interestingly, only two of the 24 personal safety programs were reported to only target sexual abuse, while two-thirds of the programs were reported to address all types of maltreatment. This finding can be attributed to the predominance of Protective Behaviours programs in Australia. It may therefore be more appropriate to label this classification as protective behav iour programs rather than as personal safety programs.
Overall, it was apparent that the vast majority of family support and child focused programs target the gamut of maltreatment types. For example, 76 of the 97 child focused and family support programs were reported to address all types of maltreatment; an additional 13 family support programs were targeted at physical and emotional abuse and neglect.
Data origin and Clearing House mailing list
As stated previously, the Clearing House is reliant on the information that professionals and community groups are willing to supply. A breakdown of the various prevention programs by their State of origin revealed that Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria account for 69 per cent of all program entries between them.
Not surprisingly, the States with the greatest mailing list memberships (also those with the highest populations), provided the highest proportions of prevention program data: New South Wales (29.8 per cent), Victoria (16.4 per cent) and Queensland (13.6 per cent) accounted for 60 per cent of all mailing list participants. It is clear from these tables, however, that the Clearing House should investigate methods to increase participation by the other States and Territories in the Clearing House databases and the mailing lists, as a means of gathering more representative national data on child abuse prevention.
Evaluations
Table 2 presents a summary of the prevention programs and their corresponding evaluation. Because most of the entries in the database referred to projects which have only been operating for a relatively short period of time, most of the evaluations referred to in the database indicated that data collection and evaluation had not been completed at the time of submitting a response.
From Table 2, it can be seen that approximately 13 per cent of the community education programs, 21 per cent of the personal safety programs, 14 per cent of the family support programs, 18 per cent of the child focused programs and 50 per cent of the offender programs are subject to 'extensive evaluation'. Over 70 per cent of all program types incorporated either an 'extensive evaluation' or 'some form of evaluation'.
Two issues arose from the program evaluations data. First, a number of the family support programs had been evaluated overseas prior to their imp lementation in Australia. It appeared that many services chose to accept the overseas evaluations and did not re-evaluate the programs once they had been modified for Australian conditions and were in operation. This issue was previously raised by James (1994a). (It should be noted that in 1995 the Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health commissioned an audit of Home Visitor programs operating in Australia; the project's final report is due out shortly.)
Second, Protective Behaviours programs have been the subject of a number of extensive evaluations by South Australian researchers (Briggs and Hawkins 1994; Johnson 1995). However, it appeared that only some of the services running Personal Safety/ Protective Behaviour programs were aware of these evaluations or were using them to inform practice. Many were reported to be relying on in-house feedback following training workshops.
The following entries from the Prevention Programs database have been selec ted here to highlight some of the best attempts by agencies to produce effective evaluations of their programs. The evaluations are assessed against the criteria outlined by James (1994a) and Fink and McCloskey (1990).
Interventions to help Mentally-ill Parents and their Children stay Together (IMPACT) is a group intervention project operating in New South Wales. Its primary goal is to prevent the development of a psychological disorder in children with a mentally ill parent, a group known to be at particularly high risk because of genetic and environmental factors.
The evaluation will involve determining whether the incidence of mental illness in the targeted children is lower than would normally be expected. Under a repeated measures design, the target group will be compared with two control groups: a waiting list and no 'parental pathology' group, as well as other comparison groups such as groups experiencing psychoeducational and cognitive behavioral interventions. This particular evaluation appears to be methodologically sound and attempts to determine changes in the prevalence of the development of psychological disturbance in children at risk.
Sexual Assault In Families (SAIF), Western Australia, provides group treatment of incest offenders in an attempt to prevent the recurrence of sexual abuse. The program evaluation consists of pre- and post-tests of a number of psychological measures and clinical interviews, carried out three, six and nine months after group treatment.
SAIF report an intention to collate this information and check on re-offending rates, using either a comparison group or published re-offending rates. While it would be difficult to make an accurate determination of re-offending by the SAIF clients, this project would also appear to be utilising aspects of 'good' evaluation practice; that is, a reasonable degree of methodological soundness, and an assessment of sexual abuse incidence to determine program effectiveness.
An Adolescent Sex Offender Treatment Program, run by the Children's Protection Society in Victoria has adopted a similar, but more extensive approach to program evaluation.
Early Parenting In-Home Support. Ten family support agencies across Victoria have been funded by a Community Support Fund grant administered by the Victorian Department of Health and Community Services to run a three-year home visitor service in their region, aimed at enhancing parenting skills, knowledge and experience.
The services will be linked to the current Maternal and Child Health Nurse program. Based on overseas programs, such as the United States Healthy Families program, families with children under four years where the family has been designated as 'special needs' (i.e. a family where the parent or child has a disability) are targeted. The evaluation will be aimed at identifying improvements in parental knowledge, childrearing skills, confidence and independence; improvements in aspects of the child's functioning; and enhancement of the parent child relationship.
The evaluation will also assess the extent to which service provision contributes to the prevention of the need for more intensive interventions, such as protective services, juvenile justice, accommodation and support services, and hospital services.
A comparison will be made of the effectiveness of three service types: Early Parenting Day Stay, Early Parenting In-Home Support and School-Linked Parenting Support. This extensive program would also appear to measure up to the evaluation standards outlined by James in the first audit of the Clearing House databases.
The significant proportion of programs incorporating an 'extensive' evaluation, in addition to those which provided details of extensive evaluations they had planned to use in the future, would appear to suggest some support for the view that practitioners have become more aware of the need to evaluate their programs effectively. This may be due in part to the trend of funding bodies to stipulate adequate program evaluation as a precondition for funding.
Overall, it would appear that more professionals are now attempting to implement rigorous evaluations of their prevention programs, thereby going some way towards satisfying the lack of quality evaluations in Australia outlined by James (1994a). A future major Clearing House task will be to assess the various program evaluations upon completion in order to determine which are most effective in preventing child maltreatment.
This article has attempted to describe the current state of some of the Clearing House information resources available for use by those working in the child maltreatment field and the community as a whole.
Building on the previous work of James (1994a) in her audit of the first Clearing House databases, the article has outlined the current state of the Clearing House Prevention Program database, some recent advances in the evaluation of prevention programs in Australia, and the extent to which the current databases are able to address previously identified gaps in the Clearing House holdings.
It cannot be sufficiently stressed that, in order to function effectively as a repository of child maltreatment information, as an advisory service, and in a networking/outreach role, the Clearing House must have access to all current research, prevention and other related child maltreatment information.
In attempting to offer a comprehensive service the Clearing House is largely reliant upon the generosity of the professional community and the general public in volunteering information. The National Child Protection Clearing House would therefore like to take this opportunity to encourage subscribers and others to provide information on their role in child abuse prevention, and to take advantage of the many resources held by the Clearing House.
Briggs, F. and Hawkins, R.M.F. (1994), 'Choosing between child protection programmes', Child Abuse Review, vol.3, pp.272 - 284.
Fink, A. and McCloskey, L. (1990), 'Moving child abuse and neglect prevention programs forward: Improving program evaluations, Child Abuse and Neglect, vol.14, pp.187 - 206.
James, M. (1994a), National Child Protection Clearing House Newsletter, vol.2, no.1, National Child Protection Clearing House, Canberra.
James, M. (1994b), Child Abuse and Neglect: Incidence and Prevention, Issues Paper no.1, National Child Protection Clearing House, Canberra.
Johnson, B. (1995), Teaching and Learning about Personal Safety: Report of the Review of Protective Behaviours in South Australia, Painters Prints, Adelaide.
National Child Protection Council Secretariat (1992), Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect: The National Child Protection Council's Guidelines for Council Cooperation with Non-Government Organisations, Canberra.
Plummer, C.A. (1993), 'Prevention is appropriate, prevention is successful', in R.J. Gelles and D.R. Loseke (eds), Current Controversies on Family Violence, Sage Publications, Newbury Park, California.
This article is based upon a paper presented by the author at the Fifth Australasian Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect: Taking Responsibility - Sharing Solutions, Melbourne, 16 - 19 October 1995.
Throughout 1996, the Prevention and Education Unit of the Victorian Department of Health and Community Services will be offering a number of training programs on topics related to the prevention of child abuse and neglect.
Responding to Child Abuse
This is a one-day introductory program for professionals whose work brings them into contact with children. It focuses on the legislation, indicators and effects of child abuse and neglect, exploring the role of professionals in preventing abuse, responding to children who disclose abuse, and professional responsibility for protecting children who have been abused.
Understanding and Responding to Child Sexual Abuse
This one-day course is designed tor professionals who work with children and have little prior knowledge about child sexual abuse. The course will provide participants with an overview of child sexual abuse: understanding our own values and attitudes, indicators, effects and phases of child sexual abuse, the influence of the perpetrator and the role of the non-offending parent, and the roles and responsibilities of professionals.
Understanding and Responding to Physical Abuse and Neglect
This two-day workshop provides participants with an overview of the nature, extent and dynamics of physical abuse and neglect, enabling professionals to take appropriate action to protect the best interests of children who may have been physically abused or neglected. The workshop includes sessions on the roles and obligations of professionals in preventing abuse and ensuring that children are safe, on working with parents, and on inter-agency collaboration.
Reporting Child Abuse Train-the-Trainer
This two-day course is specifically designed for those with a training role within their organisation or professional group. The course will look at the responsibility of professionals to report child abuse, the Mandatory Reporting legislation, and training strategies to assist in carrying this information to the workplace.
Child Abuse Prevention: Everybody's Business
This one-day seminar will discuss concepts of child abuse prevention, providing participants with information about different approaches and programs aimed at preventing abuse, including an overview of the National Child Abuse Prevention Strategy and its implementation in Victoria. The seminar will also focus on what individuals within community groups, community service organisations or government can do to prevent child abuse.
For further information, contact the Prevention and Education Unit, Protection
and Care Branch, 20/555 Collins Street, Melbourne Vic. 3000. Phone: (03) 9616
7039.
Fitting the Pieces: A Novel of Child Abuse Investigation is a fictionalised
account of the author's experiences as a child protection worker in Melbourne
in the early 1990s. The book tells Poulter's story through the character 'Jack',
a seasoned social worker who, after extensive experience as both fieldworker
and manager in the welfare system, chooses to return to the challenges of child
protection casework.
The book was written and selfpublished by the author, in part to fulfil his identified role as a professional social worker and perceived 'agent of change', to highlight current issues in child protection case management, and to offer some possible solutions to these problems.
This book has been chosen for review because it offers a rare insight into the realities of child protection work, providing both a window to the experiences of child protection staff, and raising a substantial number of theoretical and practice issues, which stimulate debate on child abuse case management issues and the operation of child protection systems in general.
The book describes the arrival of Jack, a base-grade child protection caseworker, to a child protection region in the western suburbs of Melbourne. Previously a senior worker in another region, questions about Jack's case management practice lead to him being the subject of inquiries by the Department of Community Services and the State Ombudsman's office. Though exonerated, Jack changes reg-ions in order to start afresh.
Jack's experiences in his new working environment quickly bring him into confrontation with a number of senior staff over what appear to him to be inappropriate case management decisions. Despite winning a number of early 'battles', Jack is marked as a troublemaker, and the remainder of the book focuses on his attempts to manage cases effectively in an increasingly hostile work culture.
The book deals with Jack's various experiences in this new environment: his account of 'difficult' cases to which he is assigned; his discovery of a number of instances of poor case practice; his challenging of the Department over case management decisions; and the 'system's' response to what it perceives as rebellious behaviour. The character Jack functions as a type of whistleblower, whom the Department attempts to punish for 'making waves'. Despite eventually managing to achieve positive outcomes for his cases, Jack is brought up on disciplinary proceedings and, succumbing to the situation's various pressures, is forced out on stress-related leave.
Issues
A substantial number of theory and practice issues are raised in the novel, often in the form of debate between Jack and his colleagues. These debates enable the reader to not only discover or re-visit issues in child protection, but also to gain workers' perspectives on possible solutions.
Such issues include the current trend towards investigations driven on ideological rather than professional grounds, and the poor investigation of reports of maltreatment - highlighted by Jack's perception that, in some instances where significant protective intervention had occurred, cases were founded on 'gossip-based assumptions' rather than solid evidence of maltreatment, leading to children being '... inappropriately removed from their families because of half-baked, class-based, or ideologically-driven assumptions' (p.25).
Jack's experiences prior to joining the Western Suburbs unit '... foreshadowed a pattern of cases that were investigated so blindly and simp- listically that abused children were returned to their abusive situations. Then there were other cases that had not been investigated at all, despite numb-ingly obvious signs' (p.25). Disturbingly illustrated in Jack's story were an apparent lack of theoretical knowledge to underpin practice, and a failure of senior staff to be aware of the effects of relevant legislation and/or the need to abide by legal decisions.
The novel is set during the time of Victoria's implementation of a 'single track' child protection system, where child protection services are poised to take sole responsibility for protective investigations, and police involvement is deemed to be limited to that of the criminal investigation of cases of physical and sexual assault. Jack notes a poor working relationship shared by police and child protection staff, and a failure of child protection staff to ack-nowledge any police expertise in the area of child protection work, particularly in investigatory methods.
The book describes a number of day-to-day casework issues associated with this move to a 'single track' system: case overload; a lack of resources; the lack of specialist training; and the lack of professional support or adequate supervision by senior workers, resulting in worker burnouts. The fictitious cases described in the novel are vehicles by which the author can convey his concern over the 'erosion of the ethical basis of social work practice', the dangers of continued 'bur-eaucratisation' of social work, and his perception that child protection practice is currently based more on ideological catchphrases than professional training or theory.
Poulter was particularly concerned with the assessment of sexual abuse allegations. The character Jack contends that blind allegiance to 'the children must be believed' concept has prevented an acknowledgement that in some instances alleged disclosures of child sexual abuse are false - attributed generally to inappropriate professional influence rather than mal- ice. Believing that allegations should be treated objectively until either corroborated or shown to be unsubstantiated, Jack outlines a model for assessing allegations of sexual abuse.
By way of contrast, Poulter includes in an appendix to the book an academic paper he authored reporting on the assessment of authenticity of the types of child sexual abuse allegations outlined in the novel. This model, a comprehensive list of factors designed to be considered when evaluating allegations of child sexual assault, is of theoretical interest and provides a useful link between the fictionalised account of Jack's life and the reality of the author's experiences.
Another concern expressed in the book is the role of men in child sexual abuse cases, and in child maltreatment in general. In addition to providing a male perspective of working in the female-dominated environment of child protection services, the author raises a number of issues of gender politics. Should males, most commonly the perpetrators in cases of child sexual abuse, be involved as professionals with sexually abused children? Should male workers, because of their gender, be expected to take over cases involving violent children or their families?
Poulter offers a possible solution to some of the problems raised through Jack's descriptions of numerous case management issues, describing an evaluation system that would aim to provide an opportunity for staff to learn from their mistakes and enhance their practice.
Jack states, such a 'practice audit' would enable staff to '... pick up issues, rather than just picking up on child deaths. All child death inquiries do is bind us into the worst case scenarios. They end up just making the system more and more procedure-bound. Individual professional judgement is what ends up losing every time' (p.56).
Further, an independent review of case practice is advocated that would enable workers to 'learn from our mistakes, rather than covering them up' (p.57). Poulter's suggested system is in some ways similar to that espoused by the Victorian Parliamentary Crime Prevention Committee's (1995) report on combating child sexual assault (see the review article, 'New measures for combating child sexual assault', Family Matters, vol.42, Spring/Summer 1995). The Committee advocated setting up regional, community-based Child Protection (Sexual Assault) Committees to provide community input to child protection teams, ensuring they remained aware of community issues and expectations. It was also recommended by the Committee that regional branches of a proposed State Child Protection (Sexual Assault) Board be set up to review case decisions where a complaint was lodged, or where workers significantly disagreed over case management.
Poulter's book is both stimulating and well written, providing a unique if somewhat troubling insight into the realities of child protection casework, within the framework of an engrossing story. While the 'blokesy' treatment of characters and events might be initially discouraging to some readers, the book raises numerous and important issues of case management practice and is well worth the read. Fitting the Pieces will be of value and interest to professionals working in the child protection area in addition to academics, students and the general public.
Advocates for Survivors of Child Abuse ... We Remember ... (ASCA), is a social action advocacy group formed to aid survivors of child abuse. ASCA is inclusive of men and women and is concerned about all forms of abuse: emotional, physical, spiritual and sexual. ASCA is inclusive of men and women and is concerned about all forms of abuse: emotional, physical, spiritual and sexual. Its objectives include:
The First Australian and New Zealand Conference on sexual exploitation by health professionals, psychotherapists and clergy is being organised by the Committee Against Health Professional and Clergy Abuse.
Contact: CAHPACA, PO Box 674, Rozelle NSW 2039. Phone/Fax (02) 557 8290.
26 - 28 July 1996
Trauma and Memory: An International Research Conference
Durham, New Hampshire, USA
Abstracts are invited from researchers whose work focuses on social, psychol ogical or biological aspects of memory and trauma, or on treatment or societal response in all areas of memory, cognition, trauma, violence, sexual abuse, physical abuse and traumatic stress.
Sponsored by the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire, this interdisciplinary conference will provide an open forum for researchers to critically review cutting-edge research and theory in the areas of trauma and memory, cogni-tions and violence, and the social meaning of and societal response to trauma. The conference will address methodological, theoretical and ethical issues and will include research from neurology, law, social work, criminal justice, medicine, public health, women's studies, human and child development and mental health.
Contact: Trauma and Memory Conference, Family Research Laboratory, 126 Horton Social Science Center, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824 3586, USA. Phone (603) 862 3541; Fax (603) 862 1122; E-mail: FRL96. conference@unh.edu
18 - 21 August 1996
Creating Stability in an Unstable World
Dublin, Ireland
Creating Stability in an Unstable World is the Eleventh International Congress of the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN). Sub-themes include: Protected children, protective families - a global task; building protec-tive systems - from small beginnings; Children's rights; International protection of children; Child labour; Working with abusers to protect children; Partnership with parents; Treatment perspectives; and Children of war.
Contact: The secretariat, ISPCAN Eleventh International Congress, Clifton House, Fitzwilliam Street Lower, Dublin 2, Ireland. Phone (353) 1 6613788; Fax (353) 1 6622073.
October 1996
Family Violence
Adelaide, SA
Contact: Conference Administration, Australian Institute of Criminology, GPO Box 2944, Canberra, ACT 2601. Phone (06) 260 9200; Fax (06) 260 9201; email; sylviam@act.crime.oz.au
14 - 15 November 1996
NAPCAN Conference
Adelaide, SA
The Fifth National Conference of the National Association for the Protection of Child Abuse and Neglect will be held in Adelaide.
Contact: Phone (02) 223 3565 for further information.
8 - 11 July 1997
Approaching the Millennium
Edinburgh, Scotland
The British Association for the Study and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (BASPCAN) is calling for abstracts for its Third National Congress: Approaching the Millennium: The Future Shape of Child Protection. The Congress is expected to attract international attention and is open to professionals from any of discipline involved with child welfare. Papers are invited from relevant areas including: social work, education, medicine, voluntary agencies and law. Deadline for submissions of abstracts is 1 November 1996.
Contact: BASPCAN, PO Box 5517, Inverness IV1 2ZL, Scotland.
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