Child Advocacy

Child Advocacy

Introduction

Child advocacy is the action to support children's rights, include a variety of social and political issues in countries worldwide. They comprise, but are not restricted to, hunger, child labor, disease and other health problems, homelessness, physical and emotional abuse and neglect, sexual exploitation, and education. These issues generally do not exist in segregation, and poverty is usually a central element.

In 2008 an estimated 3.7 million children were referred to Child Protection Service Agencies (CPS) across the country for investigation of abuse. This rate was the highest national rate seen for the previous 5 years. Nationally, of those victims in 2008, 9.1% were victims of sexual abuse. One of the leading developments in combating child abuse (specifically sexual abuse) has been the development of Child Advocacy Centers (CACs). CACs were established in the middle of the 1980s in response to state and community recognition of the immense impact of childhood sexual abuse and the need for a more child appropriate manner in which to deal with sexual abuse cases (National Children's Alliance, 2009).

The goal of a CAC is to bring together a multi-disciplinary team of officials (CPS, Law Enforcement, medical providers, prosecutors, etc.) to investigate abuse as well as reduce the re-victimization of the child and provide a centralized center of services for the child and family (National Children's Alliance, 2009). Child sexual abuse is a complex area of research and accounting for the true number of children that are being abused each year would be nearly impossible. Similar to rape it is likely that the majority of incidents remain unreported in comparison to those that are brought to the attention of authorities.

Typically, most people would assume that the most common type of child sexual abuse occurs at the hands of family members, however many scholars have found that the most reported abuse is committed by those unrelated to the victim with 71 to 89% being committed by nonrelatives (Bolen, 2001). However, the assumption that more abuse is committed by non family members may simply be the direct result of the underreporting of this type of abuse and the fact that families are more likely to come forward when their child has suffered the abuse by someone outside of the family unit.

Discussion

In the United States a report of child abuse is made every 10 seconds and child abuse occurs at every socioeconomic, religious, cultural and educational level (Childhelp.org, 2011). Runyon, Deblinger, Ryan and Thakkar-Kolar (2004) suggest that 85 to 90% of all parents accused of abuse do not meet the criteria for any type of psychological disorder, however the same cannot be said about their abused victims.

The consequences of childhood abuse can have a profound and lasting impact on its victims that can manifest in childhood, adolescent and/or adulthood and can affect various aspects of development (Brown & Winkelman, 2007). Goldman et al. (2003) suggest that the effects of abuse often occur in three overlapping areas including: health and physical effects, intellectual and cognitive ...