Each year, hundreds of thousands of children fall victim to child abuse in the United States, most often perpetrated by a parent or legal guardian (Children’s Bureau – An Office of the Administration for Children and Families, 2015). The current project used secondary data from a Children’s Advocacy Center to explore abuse disclosure rates in forensic interviews. The three main objectives of this project were as follows: 1) to determine whether children with certain demographic characteristics (i.e., race, gender, and age) were more likely to disclose abuse, 2) to determine whether interviewers with certain demographic characteristics (i.e., race and age) were more likely to elicit a disclosure from a child, and 3) to determine whether children were more likely to disclose abuse when they were matched with an interviewer of the same race, or a similar age. This research found that females, older children, victims of physical abuse and those who witnessed a violent crime, and children referred from the police department were the most likely to disclose abuse. Additionally, when the child and the interviewer were similar in age, the child was more likely to disclose abuse.

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During the last decade, public awareness of and concern about the sexual victimization of children has grown considerably. The number of reports to social service agencies has increased markedly, partly due to legislation in some states which mandates professionals to report suspected child abuse. Clinicians in mental health clinics are also reporting a substantial increase in the number of adult clients, who in the course of their therapies, report histories of childhood sexual victimization. Several books have been published within the past five years, predominantly about incest (e.g., Herman, 1981; Meiselman, 1978; Rush, 1980; Burgess, Groth, Holmstrom, and Sgroi, 1978). Media attention to the issue has increased phenomenally. Incest victims have been interviewed on television and numerous articles have appeared in popular magazines.

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One characteristic of abused children that is often observed but not yet empirically examined is social hypervigilance. In this study, 20 abused and 20 distressed children were compared using WISC-R subtests, two measures of locus of control and need for attention.

Tidigare forskning har visat att barn som far illa innan 18 års ålder är signifikant mer associerade med ett flertal olika mått på kriminalitet, t.ex. självrapporterad kriminalitet, officiella arresteringar, brottsfrekvens, våldsbrott samt droganvändning. Att reducera antalet barn som far illa kan därför ses som brottsförebyggande åtgärd. I Sverige har vissa yrkesprofessionella en lagstadgad skyldighet att anmäla till socialtjänsten vid misstanke om barn som far illa. Tidigare forskning har visat att yrkesprofessionella ofta misslyckas med att anmäla till myndigheter. Den här studien tar sikte på att fördjupa kunskapen och förståelsen av anmälningsprocessen. Den här studien använder kvalitativ analys och intervjuar skolpersonal om deras upplevelser av anmälningsprocessen. Intervjuerna analyseras genom kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultaten av denna studie återspeglar den tidigare forskningen i många aspekter. Analysen resulterade i fyra olika kategorier; utbildning, erfarenhet av socialtjänsten, rädsla för konsekvenser av att anmäla och anmälningsrutin. Vidare visar resultaten att skolpersonalen inte är tillräckligt utbildade om barn som far illa eller hur man ska anmäla det, att man har negativa erfarenheter av socialtjänsten, har rädsla för konsekvenserna av en anmälan samt att man har en rutin som inte underlättar anmälningsprocessen. Konklusionen av dessa resultat är att utbildningen bör förbättras samt att anmälningsrutinen bör förändras för att säkerställa att fler misstankar om barn som far illa når socialtjänsten i form av en anmälan. Vidare bör skolan och socialtjänsten samarbeta i en högre utsträckning än vad som sker idag. / Previous research has shown that children suffering from abuse, neglect or maltreatment before turning 18 are significantly associated with several measurements of delinquency, such as self-reported and official incidence of arrest, offending frequency, violent crimes and drug-use. Thus, reducing child maltreatment can be seen as a crime prevention strategy. In Sweden, certain professionals have a mandatory responsibility to report child maltreatment to authorities. Previous research has shown that professionals often fail to report to authorities. This thesis aims at deepen the knowledge and understanding of the process of reporting and adopts a qualitative approach, interviewing school personnel about their experience, and their perceived barriers to report. The interviews are analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The results of this thesis mirrors in many aspects what have been found in previous research. The analysis found four main categories, education, experience of the social services, fear of consequences of making a report and reporting routine. The results indicate that school personnel are not sufficiently educated on child maltreatment or how to report it, have negative experience of the social services, holds fear about various aspects of reporting and deploy reporting routines that might not facilitate reporting. The implications drawn from this thesis is that school personnel need to be educated to facilitate reporting, but also that reporting routines need to be altered in order to increase reporting. Further, schools and the social services need to collaborate to a greater extent than today.

Pebbles and Shards is a collection of personal essays based on family relationships that focus upon motherhood, responsibility, and the complexity of love and loss. The essays explore how people cope with the inevitability of loss and how they move beyond that loss to find something meaningful, perhaps even beautiful. They reflect upon success and failure in the face of loss and how, either way, life goes on, heedless of people’s desires and plans. The essays in Pebbles and Shards, while meant to stand alone, are thematically connected so that, read together, each story resonates with the others. In “Promises,” I explore the fear of watching my mother die of Alzheimer’s disease. In related essays “Frame by Frame” and “In Darkness,” I focus on my mother’s efforts to struggle with Alzheimer’s and how, as an adopted daughter, I underwent a role-reversal and became the mother figure. Other essays, such as “Heart of a Deadhead” and “Circus,” consider the mothering impulse, especially the guilt and conflict that so often accompany my desire to nurture others. In attempting to support and strengthen those who seem “weak,” I have sometimes found that my own actions and thoughts underscore a deeper weakness in myself. As a collection, Pebbles and Shards contemplates the suffering and joy that is a family