1 - Eureka Street

Home truthsL '" "'" MOOCconfirmed cases of children who hadbeen t hrash ed, bashed, starved,raped, abandoned or neglected bytheir parents were reported to Australianwelfare authorities. The reportrate went up by 20 % in thefollowing 12 months, and is beingmaintained this year.The rising tide of child m altreatment,and our unwillingness to admitthat we have di sm ally failed toprotect children, is a national disgrace.We have clone enough ficlcllin gwith the system : it is time to trysom ething radically different.'Child abuse' is a generous andimprecise term, covering everything,from torture to nagging, in a context.Over the last couple of decades ourarm y of child protection experts hasbecome much more aware of thepossible harm to children from certainbehaviours, and much m orewilling to describe it as maltreatment:being exposed to severe violenceaga inst others, for in stance,and 'discipline' which causes pain,humiliation and fear.That knowledge has not, however,been transmitted to parents. Accordingto a recent report commissionedby the National Child ProtectionCouncil, but not released, 80 %of their survey believed that it is notharmful to hit a child with yourhand, half believe that 'it is everyparent's right to discipline childrenin any way they see fit ' and almosthalf that no child could be reallydamaged by anything that a 'loving'parent might do. Yet rnost of themalso believed that child abuse is verywidespread across Australia, affecting20 % of fam ilies.T he experts know very well thatchild abuse is a growing nationalproblem . At the same time, knowingthe possibly damaging effects ofremoving children from their naturalenvironments, and (paradoxically)becau se the child protectionsystem s arc so over-taxed by increasingreferrals, child protection workersare in fact intervening less, andT H'N 20,000certainly less zealously, than wasthe case 10, 20 or 30 years ago. Oneexample, in a Victorian case-trackingstudy in 1994, spells it out.Two boys aged three and one hadparents with severe alcohol and drugproblems. They lived with theirMum w ho lived in fear of Dad'ssevere violence towards her. Shewasn' t copi ng: her doctor wasconcern ed a bout verbal a buse,neglect, inadequate medical care andnutrition and developmenta l delay.He referred them to a hospitalwhich released them when it couldfind no immediate evidence of physical abuse. Hospital social workersand the police were alerted becauseof the grave concerns about theirsafety. Welfare authorities refusedto accept a referral 'possibly becauseof the lack of evidence substantiatingthe case'.So the police handed over thekids to the fath er, a m an with criminalconvictions for ph ysical violence,to alleviate the possibility ofemotional abuse and neglect by hisprimary victim.In other words, even the expertsdraw arbitrary lines. They are afraidthat the law won't va lidateintervention because the situationdoesn't fit the increasingly restrictivedefinitions of ' child protection' Ia ws.They are reluctant t o rep ortsuspected abuse because they do nottrust the appropriateness of theresponse.On present research we knowthat no si ngle strategy will com ­pletely protect children from furtherharm , n or enhan ce the generalquality of their lives. We would preferto 'prevent' it, but we don't knowhow, because w e ca nnot predictharm, and onl y have experience oflate intervention .There is a grea t deal of woollys upport for 'primary prevention'progra m.s- pa rental and communitye du ca tion throug h m ediacampaigns. They have their place.We do have a National Child AbusePrevention Str ategy, a nd aCommonwealth National C hildProtection Council, whose job thisis. I have been provoked into writingthis article by reviewing the detailsof such a proposal, which will costmillions: a national advertising campaigntelling us that child abuse is acommunity problem .In the U S, natio nal m ediacampaigns did appear to have influencedexplicit a t t itudes andparenting practices, but seriousabuse and fatalities seemed to increase;in Victoria a 1993 ca mpaignincreased people's tendency to blamethe non-offending parent for theabuse; and Gillian Calvert's reportof the effi cacy of the four-year NSWC hild Sexual Assault Program massmedia campaign found there was aslight decrease in public awarenessof the problem - and a dramatic increasein those favo uring capital punishment-at its end.I looked at this during NationalChild Protection Week and shortlyafter reading that NSW, where 19children died of m altrea tment in thepreceding two years, was to cut itsfunding for services to children andfamilies; and aft er seeing publicityover a leaked report from a Victorianchild protection agency about graveproblems in responding to the huge! yincreased volume of reported abuseafter the introduction of"'{ i{ T mandatory reporting.v v HAT A I!E WE DOING ? Wh y ca n'twe prevent child abuse instead ofpicking up bodies? Our governmentshave, I think, become so accustomedto the 19th century response to abuseand neglect- the criminal justicemodel of surveillance and swooping-that they won't put their resourcesinto an y other response. Thisis how state governments ' protect'children: by authority and threat,yet we prevent child m altreatm entif w e support all children in all families.You don't do that by s noopingon the possibl y 'deviant' ones. T hat'show w e jus tified t he notorious' round-ups' of Aboriginal children.16EUREKA STREET • 0 CTORER 1995