Working with Children who have been Abused Essay

Working with Children who have been Abused - Essay Example One of the major areas of focus for the researchers has been the issue of child abuse in relation to policies and procedures and the result of many of the studies has been to emphasise the inadequacies of the present system in dealing with the issue. Therefore, one finds that researchers such as Mendes (2001) and Wise (2003) discuss the inadequacies of the system while such important writers as Lonne and Thomson (2005) offer their ideas on how to improve Queensland's child protection situation. As the 'Guidelines for Mandated Notifiers' by Child-Safe Environments, Reporting Child Abuse & Neglect suggests, there are, in general, four ways of child abuse. Physical abuse, a dominant form, is commonly characterised by physical injury resulting from practices such as hitting, punching or kicking, shaking, and alcohol or other drug administration etc. Another visible form of child abuse is sexual abuse which occurs when someone in a position of power to the child uses her/his power to invo lve the child in sexual activity and it includes sexual suggestion, exhibitionism, mutual masturbation, oral sex, showing pornographic material, using children in the production of pornographic material, penile or other penetration of the genital or anal region, and child prostitution. Emotional abuse tends to be a chronic behavioural pattern directed at a child whereby a child's self esteem and social competence are undermined or eroded over time and this includes devaluing, ignoring, rejecting, corrupting, isolating etc. Finally, neglect is characterised by the failure to provide for the child's basic needs and this includes inadequate supervision of young children for long periods of time, failure to provide adequate nutrition, clothing or personal hygiene, etc. (Guidelines for Mandated Notifiers). 'Guidelines for Mandated Notifiers' is a material available for helping a social worker in the mandated notifiers and in this paper an evaluation of the material on its adequacy of guidance, its research base etc is carried out. While evaluating whether the document offers adequate guidance for mandated notifiers, it also recommends for the improvement of the resource. Child abuse notifiers many often fall short of their aims and objectives and profound researches have focused on whether preventive family support should be encouraged rather than child protection. The result of these studies suggest that in many cases child abuse are not substantiated and a serious reason pointed out for the poor results of child abuse notifiers is the mandatory reporting regulations. And this has resulted in the remark that the time and energy could and should have been devoted to helping families instead of investigating the false claims regarding child abuse. Wise (2003) is of the opinion that the families with general needs do not expect child protection and investigation but instead they need support and it is significant that prevention can be better than cure. All these remarks can be understood in the background of inadequacy of the guidance, research bases etc. Research evidences prove the need for better guidelines and support to the social workers in thei r activities for the cause of children and society. It can be comprehended that the context of social work has undergone rapid changes and the social workers