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Although many educators feel insecure about reporting suspected child maltreatment, educators are in a unique position to identify and, subsequently, intervene in such cases. This is particularly true for those working in early childhood education settings, as the youngest children – those most vulnerable to the effects of maltreatment – are at the greatest risk for being victims of most types of maltreatment. Thus, early childhood educators should be familiar with child maltreatment and be prepared to act in these cases. The purpose of this chapter is to provide a general overview of child maltreatment. Definitions and prevalent issues will be discussed, and the potential effects of child maltreatment across a variety of domains, including cognitive, academic, social, and behavioral functioning, will be highlighted. Finally, the authors explore various responsibilities, such as mandated reporting and intervention and prevention activities, of early childhood educators.

The aim of this article is to summarise the available evidence from systematic reviews about the effectiveness of interventions to prevent or treat child physical abuse and neglect. A computerised search was undertaken of major electronic databases up to December 2005 using key search terms. Only systematic reviews were included in which the primary studies evaluated the effectiveness of targeted or indicated interventions for child physical abuse or neglect. A total of 31 systematic reviews were identified and 15 met all the inclusion criteria. They covered a range of interventions/services, including home visiting, parenting programmes, multi‐component interventions, intensive family preservation services, family‐focused casework and multi‐systemic family therapy. There was limited evidence of the effectiveness of services in improving objective measures of abuse and neglect, due in part to methodological issues involved in their measurement, but good evidence of modest benefits in improving a range of outcomes that are associated with physical abuse and neglect, including parental and family functioning and child development. The results also showed some interventions (eg. media‐based and perinatal coaching) to be ineffective with high‐risk families. The evidence provided by these reviews has clear implications for children's services in the UK and other western developed countries.

Researchers suggest that adaptation should be a planned process, with practitioners actively consulting with program developers or academic partners, but few studies have examined how adaptation unfolds during evidence-based practice (EBP) implementation. The purpose of this paper is to describe real-world adaptation discussions and the conditions under which they occurred during the implementation of a new practice across multiple county child welfare systems.

This study qualitatively examines 127 meeting notes to understand how implementers and researchers talk about adaptation during the implementation of SafeCare, an EBP aimed at reducing child maltreatment and neglect.

Several types of adaptation discussions emerged. First, because it appeared difficult to get staff to talk about adaptation in group settings, meeting participants discussed factors that hindered adaptation conversations. Next, they discussed types of adaptations that they made or would like to make. Finally, they discussed adaptation as a normal part of SafeCare implementation.

Limitations include data collection by a single research team member and focus on a particular EBP. However, this study provides new insight into how stakeholders naturally discuss adaptation needs, ideas and concerns.

Understanding adaptation discussions can help managers engage frontline staff who are using newly implemented EBPs, identify adaptation needs and solutions, and proactively support individuals who are balancing adaptation and fidelity during implementation.

This study’s unique data captured in vivo interactions that occurred at various time points during the implementation of an EBP rather than drawing upon data collected from more scripted and cross-sectional formats. Multiple child welfare and implementation stakeholders and types of interactions were examined.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether multi-type child maltreatment is associated with health-risk behaviours and mental ill-health in adolescence.

In total, 406 15-16-year-old students from Maltese schools answered the “Child maltreatment physical and mental health” questionnaire (Nguyen et al., 2010). This assessed demographics, health risk behaviour, mental health and child maltreatment.

Of the four categories of maltreatment measured (physical, sexual, emotional and neglect), 27.4 per cent of the young people experienced one type, 16.6 per cent two types, 11.1 per cent three and 6.5 per cent four. For health-risk behaviours, there were positive relationships between multi-type maltreatment and school fights (r=0.27, p<0.01), breaking school rules (r=0.19, p<0.01), illicit drug use (r=0.14, p<0.05) and alcohol use (r=0.10, p<0.05). As regards mental health, multi-type maltreatment was positively associated with depression (r=0.38, p<0.01) and anxiety (r=0.23, p<0.01), and negatively associated with self-esteem (r=−0.26, p<0.01).

Early recognition of multi-type maltreatment and its consequences enables providers of children's services to offer the required diverse range of services. Additionally, policy makers should ensure the adoption of multi-sectoral and collaborative inter-agency approaches so as to effectively and holistically manage child maltreatment, not only during the acute childhood phase but also during adolescence and adulthood, when consequences are expected to emerge.

This study raises awareness about the prevalence of multi-type child maltreatment in Malta. It also highlights the negative association between cumulative exposure to multi-type child maltreatment and mental health outcomes and risky behaviours.

International rates of child maltreatment, particularly for children with disabilities are difficult to determine due to a lack of centralized data bases, a tendency to not keep consistent records of disability characteristics in cases of suspected maltreatment, and in extreme cases, because maltreatment is not acknowledged or addressed publicly (Bonner et al., 1997; Morris, 1999). Therefore, most of the data on prevalence rates of maltreatment in disabled children are from western cultures such as the U.S., Canada, and the U.K. There is some evidence to suggest that the rates internationally are probably at least equal to those in the U.S. samples (Cooke & Standen, 2002; Gringorenko, 1998). Finklehor (1994) found that the rates of sexual abuse were consistent across nations for both males and females. The nations in that study included most European countries, Canada, Dominican Republic, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. On the other hand, Forrester and Harwin (2000) note that measuring child maltreatment internationally is nearly impossible due to the varying cultural norms, national resources, and the tendency for many forms of maltreatment to go unnoticed. They suggest that an alternative to measuring maltreatment internationally may be to evaluate each nation’s willingness to both address issues regarding the rights of children and to provide services to children who are maltreated.

Nurse home visiting programmes designed to reduce the likelihood of child maltreatment in families at risk have been widely implemented in Australia and overseas. The purpose of this paper is to examine the intensity and duration of maternal involvement in a nurse home visiting programme to prevent child maltreatment.

A retrospective, longitudinal design was employed. The clinical records of 40 mothers who had received nurse home visits following the birth of a new baby for at least six months, and had provided consent for their details to be accessed for research purposes, were selected for analysis. The influence of antenatal characteristics and well-being on maternal involvement in a nurse home visiting programme was examined using reliability of change indices.

Mothers with impaired family functioning reporting they experienced violence at home were more likely to leave the programme early and received fewer than the prescribed number of home visits compared to mothers who had been enroled into the programme for other complex psychosocial needs. At the same time, mothers enroled on the basis of impaired psychological functioning and who did not report violence in the home remained, and received more than the prescribed number of home visits over the course of their involvement.

Results showed that domestic violence increased the risk of poor engagement with a targeted nurse home visiting programme. At the same time, home visitors responded to complex individual and family needs by increasing the number of home visits accordingly. This theoretically based pilot research has helped to disentangle antecedents of maternal involvement and the subsequent impact on programme outcomes. Further investigation using a larger study sample is needed.

This article is an extended version of an ‘experts’ briefing' commissioned to inform senior child welfare managers in English local authorities and voluntary agencies about the available evidence to inform the provision of effective services in complex child protection cases. It starts by noting how differences in the approach to service provision in different jurisdictions affect both the nature of research conducted and its transferability across national boundaries. It then summarises the characteristics both of parents who are likely to maltreat their children and also of the children most likely to be maltreated. The factors that make some families ‘hard to engage’ or ‘hard to help/change’ are then discussed, as are the essential elements of effective professional practice in child protection. Particular attention is paid to effective approaches to helping families and young people who are hard to identify or engage.

This paper aims to update the chapter by Sutton and Murray in Support from the Start by providing an overview of: research linking the development and experiences of infants and toddlers with the risks of later antisocial behaviour; and evidence on effective interventions for children aged 0‐2 and their families.

The authors give a narrative review on the effects on mothers and their babies of postnatal depression.

The review examines the effects on mothers and their babies of postnatal depression, impaired bonding, insecure attachment as well as the impact of maltreatment in childhood. It considers a number of evidence‐based preventive interventions implemented in the UK to help children aged 0‐2 and their parents.

The paper provides an overview of recent evidence for the factors contributing to difficulties for parents of young children and identifies interventions demonstrated in high‐quality studies to prevent or address these problems.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the experiences of Latino clients following a naturalistic cultural adaptation made to SafeCare, an evidence-based home visiting intervention designed to address specific linguistic and cultural issues affecting the Latino community during implementation in San Diego County, California.

Hierarchical linear models examined whether Latino clients experienced differences in perceptions of SafeCare delivery, working relationship with the home visitor and satisfaction with services when compared with non-Latino clients and whether language of service delivery and provider-client ethnic match were related to Latino clients’ experiences of the intervention.

Overall, across several different dimensions, there was no decrement in experience with SafeCare for Latino clients compared to non-Latino ones, implying that adaptations made locally adequately engaged Latino and Spanish-speaking clients in services without compromising perceived adherence to the programme model.

Because this was a non-experimental study, conclusions could not be drawn as to whether the locally adapted SafeCare would fare better in Latino client ratings than SafeCare unadapted. However, the findings are important because they contradict concerns that EBPs may not be relevant to diverse client groups, and support the idea that when adaptations are made, it is possible to maintain adherence at the same level of adherence as when the programme is delivered in its non-adapted form.

The study explicitly documents and generates knowledge around an organic adaptation made in a community to an evidence-based intervention for a client group about whom there has been documented concern regarding the relevance of and engagement in services.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to identify the types of adaptations made by service providers (i.e. practitioners) during a large-scale US statewide implementation of SafeCare®, an evidence-based intervention to reduce child neglect; and second, to place adaptations within a taxonomy of types of adaptations.

Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted with 138 SafeCare providers and supervisors. Grounded theory methods were used to identify themes, specific types of adaptations and factors associated with adaptation.

Adaptations were made to both peripheral and core elements of the evidence-based practice (EBP). The taxonomy of adaptations included two broad categories of process and content. Process adaptations included presentation of materials, dosage/intensity of sessions, order of presentation, addressing urgent concerns before focusing on the EBP and supplementing information to model materials. Content adaptations included excluding parts of the EBP and overemphasizing certain aspects of the EBP. Adaptations were motivated by client factors such as the age of the target child, provider factors such as a providers’ level of self-efficacy with the EBP and concerns over client/provider rapport. Client factors were paramount in motivating adaptations of all kinds.

The present findings highlight the need to examine ways in which adaptations affect EBP implementation and sustainment, client engagement in treatment, and client outcomes.

Implementers and EBP developers and trainers should build flexibility into their models while safeguarding core intervention elements that drive positive client outcomes.

This study is unique in examining and enumerating both process and content types of adaptations in a large-scale child neglect implementation study. In addition, such adaptations may be generalizable to other types of EBPs.