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This project examines how Georgia draws the line between religious freedom and child abuse. In Georgia, certain religious parents are granted spiritual exemptions for conduct that would otherwise be prohibited due to its potential harm to children, while other parents must alter their religious practices to conform to the law. An examination of Georgia law governing conduct that is both religiously-motivated and poses a risk of physical harm to children illustrates that Georgia’s spiritual exemptions have contributed to producing legally-defined religious orthodoxy, inconsistent regulation of religious conduct, and less stringent state protection from harm for the children of some religious parents.

Over the past several years, increasing public emphasis on preventing child maltreatment has resulted in substantial changes to Florida's child abuse and neglect central registry. Many of these recent changes, aimed at preventing child maltreatment, have resulted in over one million false, unsubstantiated, and inconclusive reports of child abuse and neglect within the last decade. While the information held in reports may be useful for identifying and preventing potential child abuse or neglect, due process concerns have been raised with regards to the process of placing a person's name in a report without providing a hearing for challenging or removing inaccurate information. Focusing on Florida law, this research concentrates on: 1) the child maltreatment reporting process, 2) the procedures for maintaining reports, and 3) the accessibility of these reports in order to determine whether due process constitutional rights are protected under Florida's child abuse and neglect reporting laws. The intent of this thesis is to analyze the occurrence of unsubstantiated cases of child maltreatment, incidences of false reporting, and legal remedies available for those wrongfully accused of abusing or neglecting a child. Through the analysis of case law, federal and state statutes, available statistics, child abuse resources, and personal interviews with members of the Florida Legislature, evidence shows that due process constitutional rights are not protected under Florida's child abuse and neglect reporting laws. By raising awareness of the areas of child protection that require legal re-evaluation, this thesis aims to discover the balance between protecting children from harm and protecting adults from the severe ramifications resulting from false and improper allegations of child abuse and neglect.

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The aim of this study was to, with a social constructivistic approach, examine how parents,regarded as neglecting their children, are depicted in 12 LVU-legal cases from the Supreme Administrative Court in Sweden. By using a document analysis influenced by discourse analytical tools, we found that there are repeated descriptions of the parents, which constructs an image of parents as shortcoming in the care of their children. The categories lack of emotions, mental disorder, substance abuse and physical maltreatment were the main reasons for child neglect that the parents were described from. Attitudes towards authority, aggression and immaturity, lack of insight, and deficiencies in the home were repeated in the description of the parent. We further found that mothers were regarded as more responsible of the children compared to fathers. According to Goffman, describing certain groups of individuals with discredited words has a stigmatizing effect. It helps to reinforce what is considered normal or abnormal. Furthermore, we have found that the language of the LVU-legal cases, possess a power in the construction of parents who neglect their children, which was analyzed on the basis of Foucault's theory of power.

Bakgrund: Forskning visar att majoriteten av övergrepp mot äldre personer över 65 år sker inom familjen men kan även förkomma på institutioner som äldreboenden och andra vårdinrättningar. Syfte: Syftet med studien var att beskriva distriktssköterskors erfarenheter av fysiskt, psykiskt och sexuellt våld samt omsorgssvikt mot äldre personer över 65 år i deras nära relationer i ordinärt eller särskilt boende. Metod: studien hade en beskrivande design kvalitativ ansats och genomfördes via semistrukturerade intervjuer med åtta distriktssköterskor verksamma inom kommunal hemsjukvård. Materialet analyserades med kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Resultat: Analysprocessen resulterade i sex kategorier: Förekomst av fysiskt våld döljs av de inblandade Psykiskt våld i form av kränkningar och hot Begränsade erfarenheter av sexuellt våld Omsorgssvikt i form av för lite, för mycket eller utebliven omsorg Känslomässigt berörda av våldssituationer God kommunikation och stöd från medarbetare men avsaknad av stöd i riktlinjer. Slutsats: Slutsatsen av denna studie är att distriktssköterskor som jobbar inom hemsjukvård kommer i kontakt med våldsutsatta äldre personer och att våld mot dessa förekommer då distriktssköterskan är i patienternas hem och när de inte är där. Våldet som utförs kan vara fysiskt, psykiskt, sexuellt eller genom omsorgssvikt och behov av vidare forskning i ämnet våld i nära relationer bland äldre är angeläget. / Background: Research shows that the majority of abuse of older people over 65 occurs within the family but can also occurs in institutions for the elderly and other care facilities. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe nurses' experiences of physical, psychological and sexual violence, and neglect of the elderly people above 65 years of their close relationships in the ordinary or special accommodation. Method: The study had a descriptive design qualitative approach and was carried out through semi-structured interviews with eight district nurses working in municipal home care. The material was analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Results: The analysis process resulted in six categories: Presence of physical violence hidden by the involved Psychological violence in the form of insults and threats Limited experience of sexual violence Neglect in the form of too little, too much or no care Emotionally affected by violent situations Good communication and support from employees but lack of support in the guidelines. Conclusion: The conclusion of this study is that the district nurses working in home health care come into contact with abused older people and that violence against these occur when the district nurse is the patient's home and when they are not there. Violence carried out can be physical, psychological, sexual or neglect and need for further research on the topic of violence in close relationships among the elderly is urgent.

Child maltreatment is extremely prevalent and leads to a host of negative effects, both immediately and long term. Instances of maltreatment are often accompanied by deception, both by the perpetrator, as well as by the victim in order to avoid stigma and protect family. Thus, this study investigated social learning of deception through instances of maltreatment. 413 young adults completed an online survey assessing current attitudes toward deception, childhood maltreatment including child sexual abuse, child physical abuse, witnessing interparental violence, psychological abuse, neglect and parental addiction, social support, and participant addiction. Results indicated that neglect and psychological abuse during childhood, and current addiction were associated with a positive attitude toward deception. Severity of CSA and severity of neglect each interacted with role (agent or target) in the deceptive scenario to determine attitude toward deception. Severity of CPA interacted with perceived social support to determine attitude toward deception. Furthermore, victim's awareness of deception by perpetrators of CSA was associated with a more negative attitude toward deception. These findings support both attachment theory and social learning explanations for adulthood attitude toward deception. Attachment theory explains why neglected and psychologically abused individuals find their own deception more acceptable and other's deception less acceptable than their non-neglected counterparts, and why the opposite pattern is true for victims of CSA; and social learning theory's emphasis on attention and reinforcement to motivate behavior are supported by these findings.

The general objectives of the study were to evaluate a social work support group programme with informal caregivers that aimed to enhance the quality of care provided to older persons in an urban and rural community setting in Namibia. In order to achieve the general objectives of the study, the following specific objectives were formulated: * To explore how informal caregiving situations in urban and rural communities lead to elder abuse and neglect. * To describe existing literature on the various factors that contribute to elder abuse and neglect within community settings. * To develop a support group programme for informal caregivers of older persons in urban and rural community settings that aimed at preventing elder abuse and neglect. * To implement and evaluate the effectiveness of the support group programme for informal caregivers that aimed at preventing elder abuse and neglect. The thesis consists of 5 sections: Section A consists of the problem statement, research objectives, central theoretical argument and the theoretical approaches that underpin the study. Furthermore, the research methodology, the definition of key concepts and the limitation of the study are presented. Section B contains four articles that together formed part of the research outcomes. Each article can function independently with it’s own objectives and distinctive content. However, each article is also a sub-project of the umbrella research study. Therefore, some of the data have to be repeated in different sections. The four articles are: Article 1: Informal caregiving, elder abuse and neglect in urban and rural areas of the Khomas region in Namibia: A needs assessment A needs assessment on informal caregiving situations and how it may lead to elder abuse and neglect of older persons from an urban and rural constituency in the Khomas region was explored. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with professional and community leaders. In addition, focus group discussions were held with older persons and informal caregivers in the urban and rural constituency. Article 2: Factors contributing to elder abuse and neglect in community settings In this article, a comprehensive review of the literature pertaining to the risk and protective factors to elder abuse and neglect was done. The ecological theory was worthwhile to describe the risk factors to elder abuse and neglect. Article 3: Designing a social work support group programme with informal caregivers of older people in Namibia A social work support group programme was developed for informal caregivers of older persons in community settings. The eight-week support group programme was developed based on a needs assessment and a comprehensive literature review, and included the following topics; the normal processes of aging, handling of difficult caregiving situations, caregiver stress, self-care of the caregiver, elder abuse and neglect and caregiver grief and loss. The planning model for group work was also utilised to design the group. Article 4: Evaluation of the effectiveness of a support group programme with informal caregivers to prevent elder abuse and neglect An eight-week support group programme with ten female informal caregivers from an urban group and twelve informal caregivers from a rural group setting was implemented and evaluated. Standardized measuring instruments that assessed the outcome of the group at pre-test, post-test and postponed post-test were the Zarit Burden Interview (ZBI), Potentially Harmful Behaviour (PHB) scale and the Caregiver Abuse Screen (CASE). The Group Engagement Measure (GEM) assessed the group processes at the fourth, sixth and eight group sessions. In addition, open-ended questions were used to collect qualitative data. The quantitative and qualitative evaluations indicated that both the urban and rural groups gained knowledge on aging and caregiving, and caregivers acquired vital qualities such as patience, compassion and communication skills. The process evaluation showed that caregivers from the urban group were more engaged in the group process than the rural group. Elder abuse was underreported in the study, while personal stress of caregivers reduced significantly because of the intervention. Section C consists of the summary of the most important findings and conclusions to the research study. In addition recommendations are provided. Section D consists of the annexures to the research report, such as the measuring instruments and interview schedules used for data collection. Section E contains a consolidated list of references. / PhD (Social Work), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014

This research reviewed the neglect of cities in the mission work of the Reformed Churches in Southern Africa with a special reference to churches of Synod Soutpansberg. The biblical passage, Jeremiah 29:1-14 was used, as a representative of other biblical passages, to shed light on the role of cities in mission work of the church while addressing misconceptions and false theology about the cities and the role they played and still play in the mission work of the church. The same biblical message is confirmed by many missiology literature, including, "Cities, Missions' New Frontier" by R.S. Greenway and T.M. Monsma (1989); "City of God - City of Satan" by R.C. Linthicum(1991) and "Discipling the City" by R.S. Greenway (1992). The biblical message and the missiology literature mentioned above were the basis from which the neglect of the role of the cities in the history of the mission work of the Reformed Churches in Southern Africa was studied. From these basis, the causes, implementations and effects of such neglect in the mission work of the Soutpansberg churches was studied in Chapter 3. The empirical research was conducted using the interview questionnaire in Chapter 4. The empirical results and findings, which were presented in this research, can direct churches towards a remedy of the neglect of the cities in their mission work as far as the strategies is concerned. The neglect of the cities in the history of the mission work of the Reformed Churches in Southern Africa was studied with an aim that churches learn from it and hence avoid the past neglect in their present and future mission plans, strategies and programs. In other words, the lesson is important for churches to view the role of the secular cities as important instruments used by God to speed up not only the planting and growing big holy churches from those secular cities outwards, but also the biblical reformation of the rural - orientated theories, strategies and practice! / Thesis (M.A. (Theology))--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2008.

Impairments in aspects of social cognition have been found in children who have experienced maltreatment; however, the long-term impact of childhood maltreatment on social cognition is less well understood. This study examined areas of social cognition that may be associated with poor psychological, social, and emotional outcomes in adults who have experienced intra-familial childhood maltreatment. In a sample of university students (N = 68), childhood maltreatment was associated with social cognitive impairment in two models of emotional intelligence (EI), trait EI and ability EI, and advanced theory of mind (ToM). Higher frequency and severity of specific subtypes of childhood maltreatment predicted lower trait EI, ability EI, and ToM. In particular, neglect predicted lower ToM and ability EI scores. Psychological abuse alone predicted lower trait EI while physical abuse was not a significant predictor for any of the social-cognitive variables. Further, the data showed maternal vs. paternal maltreatment predicted specific social cognitive outcomes. Understanding the relationship between social cognitive deficits and intra-familial maltreatment may guide clinical and community assessment and treatment approaches, as well as provide information on the pervasive and continuing impact of childhood maltreatment. / February 2017