Services for Child Maltreatment: Challenges for Research and Practice

With the shrinking funds for child welfare allocated primarily to investigation and foster care, prevention and treatment services for child maltreatment (CM) are increasingly nonexistent, inaccessible, or inappropriate. Prior research on helpseeking and service utilization has given scant attention to maltreating and at-risk families, who pose special challenges for service delivery for several reasons: maltreating families often do not recognize the development of problems in the parenting relationship; even if problems are recognized, the stigma associated with child maltreatment makes families reluctant to seek help; and service providers and client families often have different beliefs about what services are needed. A review of the literature on help-seeking and service utilization among populations at risk, in light of the social context of child maltreatment, suggests that research to identify specific parental concerns is needed in order to link prevention and treatment services to other services devised to meet clients’ perceived needs. In addition, longitudinal research is needed to focus on the effects of social networks on the use of formal services and on the links between utilization of formal and informal services.