Child Abuse Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Child Abuse, including details on family violence, examinations, long-term effects, psychiatrics disorders.

The role of men in chronic supervisory neglect.

Coohey C, Zhang Y

School of Social Work, University of Iowa, Iowa City 52242, USA. carol.coohey@uiowa.edu

This study investigates whether parents' child care demand and resources, their capacity to provide adequate supervision, and their understanding of the supervision problem predict chronic supervisory neglect. A case-comparison design was used to compare families who had one isolated incident of supervisory neglect, who were involved with child protective services (CPS) because of a persistent supervision problem (2 years or less), and who were involved with CPS because of a chronic supervision problem (more than 2 years). When the mother's partner was not the father of her children or had a drug, alcohol, or mental health challenge, and when no one understood that there was a supervision problem or took responsibility for it, the problem was more likely to persist or become chronic. Therefore, when predicting whether a family will continue to provide inadequate supervision, it is important to also assess the mother's partner.

Published 29 December 2005 in Child Maltreat, 11(1): 27-33.
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