Article 1:

 

Abstract:

This article delineates the current fiscal management and reimbursement for child abuse examinations. These financial issues are high priority for child abuse programs because most programs lack the revenues to meet the demands for service, education, advocacy and research. Programs may share medical protocols and standards but have yet to share management solutions. The authors present the administrative details of 75 child abuse evaluation programs and highlight innovative approaches to increase funding and stabilize the funding for the programs. They present information on billing, contracts, costs of care, and state-based initiatives that can be reproduced by other programs and states.

 

Questions to consider:

1.  What are some ways that funding can be increased for child abuse programs?

2.   How would uniform standards for forensic evaluations improve investigations of children who are victims of abuse or neglect? What would these standards look like?

3.  Describe the legislation that was developed in Virginia, Utah, and Ohio regarding the funding of medical examinations. Are there additional policies and laws you believe would be helpful if developed?

 

Article 2:

 

Abstract:

Over the past two decades, research on social work practice has experienced substantial growth in the United States, indicated by both the establishment of the Society for Social Work Research in 1994 and increased funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Recently, this growth has carried an increasing emphasis on research to establish the evidence base for social work practice and an emphasis on understanding dissemination and implementation of evidence-based interventions or practice models in usual care settings within service systems that have historic and professional linkages to the social work discipline, such as child welfare and mental health. This article illustrates this growth and emphases on evidence-based practice in the social work research areas, child abuse and neglect, child welfare and child mental health through the two-decade experience of a large-scale and multi-disciplinary research center in San Diego County, California, the Child and Adolescent Services Research Center (CASRC). Evidence for understanding and improving care in these two service systems served by social work practice has been developed through center studies of clinical epidemiology, mental health services, effectiveness of evidence-based interventions, and the dissemination and implementation of these interventions in usual care settings.

 

Questions to consider:

1.  What is the Roadmap initiative and what are the implications for child welfare?

2.   Describe the connection between child welfare and children’s mental health.

3.  Explain why it is important to use evidence-based practice to inform social policy.

 

Article 3:

 

Abstract:

Among the negative sequelae of child maltreatment is increased risk for continuity of maltreatment into subsequent generations. Despite acknowledgment in the literature that the pathways toward breaking the cycle of maltreatment are likely the result of dynamic interactions of risk and protective factors across multiple ecological levels, few studies have followed high-risk samples of maltreated and nonmaltreated parents over time to evaluate such processes. In the current investigation, exposure to community violence and authoritarian parenting attitudes were evaluated as predictors of the intergenerational continuity of abuse, and the moderating effect of African American race was examined. The sample included 70 mothers and their 18-year- old children, who have been followed longitudinally since the third trimester of the adolescent mothers’ pregnancy. Results revealed that among mothers with a child abuse history, higher exposure to community violence and lower authoritarian parent- ing attitudes were associated with increased risk for intergenerational continuity of abuse. The relation of authoritarian parenting attitudes to intergenerational continuity was moderated by race; the protective effects of authoritarian parenting were limited to the African American families only. The salience of multiple ecological levels in interrupting the intergenerational continuity of child abuse is discussed, and implications for preventive programs are highlighted.

 

Questions to consider:

1. Describe the intergenerational effects of child maltreatment.

2. What are the interactions among the multiple ecological levels that are discussed in the article?

3. Given what we know about the importance of understanding the various ecological levels involved in interrupting the intergenerational continuity of child abuse, what types of prevention programs would be most effective?