Child Sexual Abuse

Addresses the needs of professionals who encounter child sexual abuse in the course of their work. Describes professional practices in sexual abuse and discusses how to address the problems of sexually abused children and their families. Meets the needs of child protection workers, the front line staff mandated to investigate reports of child maltreatment. Also benefits educators and health care professionals, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and legal professionals. Charts, glossary, bibliography, and list of resources.

This updated and expanded edition provides comprehensive coverage of the theory and practice of counselling survivors of child sexual abuse (CSA). In a reasoned and thoughtful approach, this book honestly addresses the complex issues in this important area of work, providing practical strategies valuable and new insights for counsellors.

Valuable resource for professionals in fields of psychiatry, psychology, mentatal health, social work and teaching, also for concerned parents. Provides guidelines for treating the child and family and systems for prevention. Techniques of different therapies are discussed as well as procedures for reporting, investigating, and interviewing the child.

Child sexual abuse has become a prevalent topic of study and discussion in the fields of Child Psychology, Pediatrics, Law Enforcement, and Social Work. But even with the widespread knowledge of identifiable behavior in its victims and abusers, society's response to child sexual abuse is failing profoundly. Rebecca Bolen's authoritative book, Child Sexual Abuse: Its Scope and Our Failure, clearly defines the scope of child sexual abuse and addresses society's ability to respond to the problem. It is her thesis that society's response to child sexual abuse is failing because the policies, programs, and statutes designed to assess and identify abuse are grounded in historical and myth-bound theoretical child sexual abuse literature rather than in the empirical knowledge base. This comprehensive text on child sexual abuse covers: The historical conceptualization of child sexual abuse, starting with Freud. A review of the empirical literature on the incidence and prevalence of child sexual abuse. The professional response to child sexual abuse. The most sophisticated model of risk of child sexual abuse done to date. Two new models of understanding reactions by nonoffending guardians. The pervasiveness of the threat of extrafamilial abuse. £/LIST£ This text is divided into three main areas of discussion: Sociohistorical Context, Scope of the Problem, and Aftermath. This comprehensive review can be used not only as a text, but also as a primary reference for professionals in government, law enforcement, medical, mental health, and any agency that works with child sexual abuse offenders and victims.

This book is the first comprehensive study of child sexual abuse in the Caribbean, exploring issues such as the ontology of childhood, links between slavery, colonialism and present-day gender-based violence, the impact of child sexual abuse on the brain and child protection after natural disasters.

Surviving Child Sexual Abuse" is a handbook for survivors and their helpers. It examines what sexual abuse entails for a child and why it happens. Personal and professional issues for helpers are addressed and the long term effects of sexual abuse are examined. The strengths of survivors are acknowledged together with the supportive alliances they have formed with partners, helpers and friends. The theme of disclosure is examined in depth and the main themes in therapeutic work with survivors are discussed and methods are described which can be used in such therapeutic work. This highly successful book ends with an evaluation of the issues involved in training helpers for working with survivors.; The book is aimed at therapists including social workers, counsellros in public organizations and private practice, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, nurses, health visitors, general practitioners, police and psychotherapists.

Disability and Child Sexual Abuse examines the ways in which society marginalises, institutionalises and places disabled children in situations of unacceptable risk, and how - as evidenced in the survivors' narratives - patterns of service delivery can contribute to the problem. Based on the accounts of seven disabled individuals who were sexually abused in childhood, the book highlights a wide range of pertinent issues. Through case vignettes and empirical research, the authors ask practitioners to scrutinise their current professional practice, exploring participants' experiences of hospitalisation, education systems and local authorities. They consider the issue of who abuses and why, and highlight issues relating to the complexities involved in revisiting past experiences and confronting unwarranted and unwanted feelings of responsibility. The difficulty of recounting the abuse narrative is also examined within the research context. This book will be relevant for professionals and students in the social, health and education services, such as social workers, teachers and counsellors. It will also offer insights for those seeking a less disablist society, including disabled people themselves.

Children who have been sexually abused can be very challenging patients. In addition to medical examination and treatment, their needs include emotional, psychological, social, and legal support. Because every child suspected of having been sexually abused should have access to a skilled medical provider, this workbook and its accompanying videotape are designed to offer a learning experience for medical professionals (particularly physicians and nurse practitioners) who are beginning to work in the area of child sexual abuse. The manual is divided into four sections: ? Decision Points in the Evaluation of Child Sexual Abuse ? The Medical History for Child Sexual Abuse ? The Medical Examination for Child Sexual Abuse ? Medical-Legal Issues in Child Sexual AbuseBased on clinical cases, each section of the text sets out learner objectives, presents cases, asks specific study questions, and then provides answers and discussion. Evaluating Child Sexual Abuse can be used as a quick home-based self-study training program and as a continuing reference, as well as in residency training for pediatric, obstetric/gynecology, family practice, or emergency medicine, and in postresidency child abuse fellowship training. Botash recognizes that the role of skilled medical providers goes beyond examining children and referring them to multiple services. It also involves talking to the children, working with their families, and coordinating the efforts of various community and private services. In addition, medical providers must be advocates for the children, working with human service agencies and the legal system, as well as teachers who help educate families and other service providers. This manual was written to help medical providers improve their skills in all these areas.

This book offers a timely and detailed exploration and analysis of key contemporary issues and challenges in child sexual abuse, which holds great relevance for scholarly, legal, policy, professional and clinical audiences worldwide. The book draws together the best current evidence about the nature, aetiology, contexts, and sequelae of child sexual abuse. It explores the optimal definition of child sexual abuse, considers sexual abuse in history, and explores new theoretical understandings of children’s rights and other key theories including public health and the Capabilities Approach, and their relevance to child sexual abuse prevention and responses. It examines a selection of the most pressing legal, theoretical, policy and practical challenges in child sexual abuse in the modern world, in developed and developing economies, including institutional child sexual abuse, female genital cutting, child marriage, the use of technology for sexual abuse, and the ethical responsibility and legal liability of major state and religious organisations, and individuals. It examines recent landmark legal and policy developments in all of these areas, drawing in particular on extensive developments from Australia in the wake of its Royal Commission Into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It also considers the best evidence about promising strategies and future promising directions in enhancing effective prevention, intervention and responses to child sexual abuse.

The chapters in this book are intended to describe what is known and what is not known in several specific areas of childhood abuse. The opening interview with Roland Summit gives readers an opportunity to get acquainted with a pioneer in the field. An instrumental force in the study of child sexual abuse, Summit has indelibly impacted the work of the remaining authors and the field in general. The interview provides a personal and historical view of the development of the field and identifies problems and issues all professionals should be prepared to deal with.

As recently as 1970, child sexual abuse was seen as extremely rare and usually harmless. Over thirty years later, the media regularly covers child sexual abuse cases, many survivors speak openly about their experiences, and a thriving network of public and private organizations seek to prevent child sexual abuse and remedy its effects. This is the story of these dramatic changes and the activists who helped bring them about. The Politics of Child Sexual Abuse is the first study of activism against child sexual abuse, tracing its emergence in feminist anti-rape efforts, its development into mainstream self-help, and its entry into mass media and public policy. Nancy Whittier deftly charts the development of the movement's "therapeutic politics," demonstrating that activists viewed tactics for changing emotions and one's sense of self as necessary for widespread social change and combined them with efforts to change institutions and the state. Though activism originated with feminists, as the movement grew and spread to include the goals of non-feminist survivors, opponents, therapists, law enforcement, and elected officials, participants were pulled toward formulations of child sexual abuse as a medical or criminal problem and away from emphases on gender and power. In the process, the movement both succeeded beyond its wildest dreams and saw its agenda transformed in ways that were sometimes unrecognizable. A lucid and moving account, The Politics of Child Sexual Abuse draws powerful lessons about the transformative potential of therapeutic politics, their connection to institutions, and the processes of incomplete social change that characterize American politics today.

The international feminist contributors to this book look through the lens of poststructuralism at how child sexual abuse is differently represented and understood in the populist, academic, clinical, media and legal contexts. Reworking earlier feminist analyses, they show how child sexual abuse is not just about gender and power but also about class, race and sexuality. The first, theoretical section of the book critiques normative theories of the 'effects' of abuse, explores the impact and consequences of feminist interventions and critically examines the potential usefulness of a feminist post-stucturalist approach. In the second part, these understandings are applied to specific arenas of practice with the aim of providing a framework for critical intervention and alternative and better ways of working with child sexual abuse.

This book takes up the challenge of examining women’s understandings of eating disorders and child sexual abuse away from a framework focused on pathology. The central argument is that women’s distress is an enactment of their engagement with certain discourses and practices, rather than a reaction triggered by child sexual abuse. Guided by a contemporary feminist framework and Mikhail Bakhtin’s sociological linguistics, to substantiate the argument, women’s own poetry and drawings are used as evidence to develop, support and supplement research findings. The book establishes that an eating disorder is ‘an understandable response’ to sexual trauma and shifts the focus away from ‘a damaged personality’. Even more importantly, it demonstrates that women with eating disorders are using their bodies as a form of resistance to express silenced traumas that remain in the silenced female body. This is an active way of making sense of experiences of child sexual abuse.

Assessment and Intervention with Mothers and Partners Following Child Sexual Abuse provides child protection professionals with the guidance they need to make the right decisions in cases of suspected or proven sexual abuse and ensure the best outcome for the child. Assessments and interventions used for other forms of abuse, such as physical abuse or neglect, elicit a great deal of information, but do not fully address the issues and needs in relation to child sexual abuse. This book lays out a new model for understanding, assessing and working with mothers of sexually abused children or partners of known or suspected sexual offenders - a model which combines offender knowledge with understanding of mothers and partners. It is structured around the following central critical questions: · Did she know it was happening? · Is she able to protect the child? · What do I need to do to ensure that the child is safe? Combining research and empirical evidence with case studies, exercises and practical guidance, this book is essential reading for child protection professionals working with children and families.

A meticulously researched inside look at child sexual abuse by clergy, this exhaustive, hard-hitting analysis weaves together interviews with abusive priests and church historical and administrative details to propose a new way of thinking about clerical sexual offenders. Linking the personal and the institutional, researcher and therapist Marie Keenan locates the problem of child sexual abuse not exclusively in individual pathology, but also within larger systemic factors, such as the very institution of priesthood itself, the Catholic take on sexuality, clerical culture, power relations, governance structures of the Catholic Church, the process of formation for priesthood and religious life, and the complex manner in which these factors coalesce to create serious institutional risks for boundary violations, including child sexual abuse. Keenan draws on the priests' own words not to excuse their horrific crimes, but to offer the first in-depth account of a tragic, multi-faceted phenomenon. What emerges is a troubling portrait of a Church in crisis and a series of recommendations that call for nothing less than a new ecclesiology and a new, more critical theology. Only through radical institutional reform, Keenan argues, can a more representative and accountable Church emerge. Child Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church is a unique reference for scholars of the Church and therapists who work with both victims and offenders, as well as a forward-thinking blueprint for reform.

Ashenden brings a number of contemporary debates in social and political theory to bear upon the governance of child sexual abuse. In particular, drawing on the work of Foucault and Habermas.

DELIVERS AN EFFECTIVE, ENGAGING NEW TECHNIQUE FOR TREATING CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE Treating a confirmed or suspected case of childhood sexual abuse is undoubtedly one of the most challenging situations a clinician can face. This unique book, written by recognized experts on the evaluation and treatment of childhood sexual abuse, is the first to disseminate a comprehensive and integrative approach to treating child sexual abuse that combines the power of structured play therapy with cognitive-behavioral treatment. Created by the authors, game-based cognitive-behavioral therapy (GB-CBT) is a complete therapeutic package containing engaging techniques and effective strategies to treat the problems experienced by children and families impacted by sexual abuse. The book provides the rationale, underlying theory, and step-by-step instructions for providing GB-CBT to families affected by child sexual abuse. Detailed descriptions of evidence-based techniques and required materials are included, along with reproducible game boards and other items needed to implement activities. These structured therapeutic games and role-plays are enjoyable and provide multiple opportunities for children to learn and rehearse such skills as emotional expression, anger management, relaxation strategies, social skills, social problem solving, and cognitive coping. A detailed session framework complete with behavioral expectations and reward systems, along with illustrative case examples, further demonstrates how to implement GB-CBT. Also included are recommendations for effective and comprehensive assessment procedures. The book describes activities for individual, conjoint child--caregiver, and group therapy that can be used in a multitude of therapeutic environments and can be incorporated into clinical practice across a variety of orientations. Additionally, it includes information about cultural considerations critical for effective delivery with diverse populations. The book also contains strategies for training and educating students and clinicians about GB-CBT. KEY FEATURES Delivers an effective new method for treating child sexual abuse that combines structured play therapy with cognitive-behavioral therapy Written by the originators of GB-CBT, recognized experts in this field Designed for use in a variety of settings and with different therapeutic modalities Presents concrete strategies, step-by-step instruction, and required materials for treating problems related to child sexual abuse Includes illustrative case examples and a complete description of structured sessions with behavioral expectations and reward systems

This book critically reviews research into child sexual abuse (CSA), and provides a concise and clear guide to current knowledge. The topics covered include: the prevalence of CSA; who molests children; the effects of such abuse, both immediate and long term; the risk factors for abuse; and the influences and interventions that may amplify or ameliorate the impact of CSA on the victim. Areas of debate, such as the false memory syndrome, are approached in terms of the research data relevant to their resolution.

Various groups and professionals dealing with children in the past decade have become increasingly concerned with the nature, extent, and consequences of child sexual abuse in Canadian society. This document contains a composite picture of the many community efforts supported so far through the initiative. The summaries are categorized by the funding priorities that were determined at the start of initiative. These priorities are: prevention, treatment, and training/education. Projects are categorized as conferences/programs, research/evaluations, and resources. Abstracts provide information on sponsors, funding, project duration, and project goals and outcomes.