Approaches to Child Protection Issues

Approaches to Child Protection Issues What we need in child protection is for workers to take a lighter touch approach, more supportive and less intrusive. Discuss and evaluate this proposition. Introduction Where it has been estimated that a child may be at risk then a social worker has a duty of care under the 1989 Children’s Act. Furthermore, he or she is also bound by a requirement to act within a framework that is informed by the Human Rights Act of 1998. This means that the social worker, and any other agencies who may be involved, while having a duty to protect that child, should, nevertheless, also bear in mind the rights of the family. History tends to suggest that these rights are often ignored. How can workers be expected to take a less intrusive approach to child protection issues when the history of Government policy making actually places the onus on them to take more of an interventionist approach? Arguably, the question is almost impossible to answer when social workers are hidebound by the increasingly intrusive policy making that has been the legacy of successive political parties. This paper will look at what is needed in child protection, is for workers to approach cases with a lighter touch. It will begin by looking at the changing concept of childhood and then at successive Governments’ policies since the beginning of the Welfare State. The paper will also look at some research studies which argue that there is a need for intervention and support and how the concept of needs has been substituted for a concept of risk, particularly since the introduction of market principles into social care. Finally the study will argue that while workers should apply a lighter, less intrusive approach to child protection issues, social workers are prevented from doing so as a result of changing market forces and Government policy making. Changing Views of Childhood In pre-industrial societies there was little distinction between youth and adulthood and children were not subjected to codes of behaviour that were different to those of adults. With the rise of the factories and the shift from rural to urban life this began to change and by the 18th century parents were deemed to have responsibility for their offspring and to see that they had a safe and disciplined upbringing. The idea of childhood was a novel one, particularly among the poor where everyone was expected to be economically active, how childhood was understood, therefore depended largely upon class. While ideas were changing children were generally regarded as their parents’ legal property and child cruelty did not become an offence until 1889. Increasingly childhood and adolescence have become problematic concepts and young people are perceived as different and more difficult, than their forbears, thus the perceived need for a different approach to policy making. Young people are often in situations where they are deemed to be ‘at risk.’ Giddens (1998) has argued that the modern world is characterised by manufactured risks, .practices, and policies that are meant to reduce risk or minimise harm but often have unintended consequences. As Giddens maintains with regard to warnings about risk: We just cannot know beforehand when we are actually ‘scaremongering’ and when we are not (Giddens, 1998:30). Need and Risk More recently Kemshall (2002) has raised the question of whether government and social services’ focus have changed from a concept of need to a concept of risk. Recent, further extensions to the concept of childhood have meant that children are viewed as a vulnerable group in need of care and protection. Corby (1993) maintains that historical evidence suggests that while notions of what proper parenting might be said to be, has varied over time there has always been a concern over child abuse. However, Corby argues that despite this concern, childcare and child protection policies over the hundred years leading up to the 1989 Children’s Act were largely ambivalent. Hemshall (2002) argues that rather than late twentieth century policy making remaining ambivalent, an interventionist approach to child protection began to appear from the time of the inception of the welfare state. The interventionist approach, it might be argued, was also a class based system whereby certain types of families (most often the very poor) were identified as problem families. This resulted in new categories pertaining to child abuse and what was meant by the term ‘at risk’. With the emergence of these discourses state powers with regard to family life were increased. This resulted in the Children and Young Person’s Act of 1952. This Act gave greater powers to children’s departments to identify families who were deemed to be ‘in need’ and to oversee their protection. Problem families were associated with ‘cycles of deprivation’, and child abuse was medicalised as the ‘battered baby syndrome’ (Kempe et al, 1962 and Okell and Butcher, 1969, in Kemshall, 2002:71). Over the next fifteen to twenty years both the concept of abuse and the areas where children were considered to be at risk, were extended to include such things as a failure to thrive. The case of Maria Colwell in the late 1960s was given extensive media coverage. This was a new aspect to the debates about children at risk and had the effect of raising public awareness and concern over what was seen as a failure to protect on the part of social service agencies. Subsequently the profession was increasingly held to account for its failure to identify risk and to intervene. Cochrane (1993)[1] maintains that the continuing number of enquiries that took place between the early 1970s and the 1980s resulted in social work being practised in what he describes as a beleagured context for the profession (Cochrane, 1993:82). Scaremongering about perceived risk raises public disquiet and leads to unforeseen outcomes. Nowhere was this more evident than the mistakes made in Cleveland in the late 1980s when widespread child abuse was believed to have taken place and numbers of children were removed from family homes on flimsy evidence. Serious mistakes were made in an attempt to prevent harm. The accusations were later proved unfounded, but some parents had to go to the European Courts in order to get their children returned. Kemshall et al (1997) are of the opinion that while this was the case, rather than recommending a lighter touch, Government policies tended towards even greater intervention. This altered the whole concept of what social services had originally been about, that of helping people in need. The Market Economy, Needs and Risks In the market based economy that Britain had become under Thatcher, needs were to be met by the community in an effort at cutting welfare costs. These developments meant that by 1989 the context had changed from families in need to children at risk. †¦the notion of the ‘child in need’ and the ‘child at risk’ is constructed through the dominant discourse of modernity’s welfarist normalisation of families. This locates children in a bounded space within which certain behaviours, activities and attitudes are seen as normal or deviant (Kemshall, 2002:73 citing Moss et al, 2000). As Kemshall (2002) maintains we have become defensive about risk and see it in terms of harm to be avoided this negative view of risk can lead, as Douglas, (1992) contends to a culture of blame. The (system we are in now is almost ready to treat every death as chargeable to someone’s account, every accident as cuased by someone’s criminal negligence, every sickness a threatened prosecution. Whose fault? Is the first question (Douglas, 1992:15-16).[2] Agencies, both statutory and non-statutory, have a duty with respect to safeguarding children. This was highlighted in research evidence and further documented in the Department of Health 1999 Report Working together to safeguard children. While it might be argued that this view can lead to mistakes such as those made in Cleveland, and there are still many cases where perfectly innocent parents have had their children removed from the family home, social workers try to do their best in very difficult circumstances. This means that there are times when they are over zealous and intervene in cases where a child was never at risk, and at other times they miss the warning signs and make mistakes. The public tends to remember the mistakes rather than applauding the good work that is done. This is because when mistakes are made they can lead to horrifying consequences as the case of Victoria Climbie demonstrates. Since that time guidance on when and how to act has tended to be clearer and more precise. Most of this has been in response to the recommendations of Lord Laming after his work on the Victoria Climbie enquiry (Laming, 2003). A whole series of measures have since been put in place aimed at those families and situations where a child could legitimately be deemed to be at risk.. The Joint Chief Inspector’s Report, Safeguarding children (2002) defines safeguarding children and their families in the following way: All agencies working with children, young people and their families take all reasonable measures to ensure that the risks of harm to children’s welfare are minimized, and where there are concerns about children and young people’s welfare, all agencies take all appropriate action to address those concerns, working to agreed local policies and procedures in full partnership with other local agencies. Class still appears to be a problem when it comes to identifying children who are at risk and the authorities are more likely to suspect abuse when dealing with children from poorer homes than they are with those from middle-class homes. This raises the question of whether Becker’s (1967) labeling theory was correct in the assumption that when you treat people in a certain way they tend to act out those assumptions. It is unfortunately the case that there have been a number of research studies which tend to suggest that factors such as poverty and unemployment do sometimes lead to child safety issues. One study of parents who had children on the At Risk Register, found that children in homes where there was unemployment and financial problems ran a greater risk of being abused than children who did not live in that situation. The research argues that the findings suggest a clear link between social and economic deprivation and the risk of child neglect and/or abuse (Sidebotham et al, 2002). Some studies also suggest that in homes where the parents have alcohol or other substance abuse issues, children are more likely to be at risk. Harwin and Forester (2002) found that in cases where the parents misused drugs or alcohol, the children often came to the attention of Social Services as a result of concern for their safety and well being. In a study of more than 290 cases across four London Boroughs, a third of those children who needed long term intervention lived with one or more parents who had some form of substance abuse issues. Research such as this raises concern in a number of areas, particularly in homes where there are children under the age of six. This did not mean that these children were necessarily victims of their parent’s cruelty, rather it was the case that the family needed some support to help with these problems. The terms of Section 17 of the 1989 Children’s Act mean that families in crisis should be offered some service provision in order to ease problematic situations. The idea being that such support will result in better prospects for their children’s emotional, physical and social development. Gardner (2002) in a study undertaken for the NSPCC found that support services could be of significant help under these circumstances and that 58% of children who were considered to be at risk, and who had access to support services, showed significant improvement in their  development after these measures were put in place. In 2001 the Government commissioned the Children in Need Census[3] which attempted to establish why children accessed children in need services, what type of provision they accessed and the costs associated with that provision. Moore (2002) maintains that guidelines, policies and procedures relating to child safety issues are constantly under review. Since the 1990 NHS Care and Community Act there has been an increasing stress on inter-agency co-operation and working together in all areas, not just child protection issues. However there is an increasing need for greater co-operation between agencies when it comes to suspicions that a child may be at risk. With regard to cases of outright physical or sexual abuse health workers and social workers are not always clear on who has the responsibility in this area. While the 1970 Act placed that responsibility solely in the hands of social services departments, the stress on inter-agency working has muddied the waters somewhat in this area . Under the terms of the 1990 Act there is a stipulation that health and social workers should work and plan together to assess and meet service users needs. However, past history tends to reveal clear lines of professional delineation and a failure to agree on what is best and who should be responsible such an arrangement means that working together can often result in conflict. This makes agencies wary of taking a decision with regard to the responsibility of care (Parrott, 2002). Clearly, where the NHS and social services fail to co-operate in assessing need and delivering care then service users suffer and are failed by the system. The more recent Health and Social Care Bill of 2001 gives Government powers to ensure that health agencies and local authorities, whose services are failing to pool their resources comply with this legislation. However, there is nothing in place to delineate how this might be done and without a clear working agreement on who is responsible for what services will continue to fail. This means that those members of society who are least able to help themselves will lose out, and will not have their needs met. Each area now has an Area Child Protection Committee which is comprised of health representatives, social workers, teachers, probation services and the police. Each of these committees is required to produce a set of guidelines for all of those people who work with children, either in schools, in hospitals or in residential acco mmodation. The guidelines do make suggestions as to courses of action when any kind of child abuse is suspected, but there is still no clear cut ruling as to how this might be carried out. Yet another of the Committee’s duties is to oversee the child protection register. This is a list of children whose circumstances may have raised concern among professionals and it is held by every social services department in the country. To protect their welfare such children have specific inter-agency plans set up for their protection. One aspect of this is that every child on the register must have a key worker and a child protection care plan. These are generally social workers who will work with the family and help to draw up and monitor the care plan. These child protection systems are continually monitored and reviewed (Moore, 2002). One problem with the child protection register is that once a child is on it they may remain on it for a very long time, long after the problems may h ave abated. It is also the case that in many departments children who come to the notice of social services for any reason may have their names put on the register – even if it is simply that the family have asked for help during a time of crisis, such as when the mother has to go into hospital. These children are not assigned a worker but there names are on a register that has negative associations for both the wider community and those working in social services departments. Conclusion This assignment has looked at the question of whether social workers should take a lighter approach when dealing with child protection issues. It has done this within the wider context of Government policy making and has found that successive Governments have taken an increasingly interventionist approach when dealing with child protection issues since the beginnings of the Welfare State. While it has to be said that there did need to be some guidelines and provisions in place for children in need or who were deemed to be at risk, it would also seem that policy making has made it almost impossible for social workers to apply a lighter touch in these matters. Social workers are there to help assess and satisfy needs that may arise in families and in the wider community, yet increasingly there has been a shift in emphasis from need to risk. It is arguably the case that this shift is due in part to the marketisation of social care because meeting needs implies a cost to local authoritie s and the whole idea is to shift that cost from off the shoulders of the government and onto the community. Child protection is a sensitive area and children have a right to be protected. However, interventionist policy making blur the lines for social workers so that it is almost impossible to decide when a light and non-invasive approach should be used, and when other measures are called for. Bibliography Aries, P. 1962 Centuries of Childhood London, Cape. Corby, B. 1993. Child Abuse: Towards a Knowledge Base. Buckingham, Open University Press Department of Health (1999) Working Together to Safeguard Children: A guide to inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children HMSO. Department of Health (2000) Assessing Children in Need and their Families The Stationary Office Department of Health (2000)Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families The Stationary office. Gardner, R. 2002 Supporting Families:L Child Protection in the Community Chichester Valley Giddens, A. 1998. â€Å" Risk society, the context of British politics, in Franklin, J ed. The Politics of Risk Society Oxford, Polity Press. Griffiths Report (1988) Community Care; An Agenda for Action, London: HMSO Harwin J. and Forester, D. 2002 Parental Substance Misuse and Child Welfare: A study of social work with families in which parents misuse drugs or alcohol Department of Health Hendrick, 1997. â€Å"Constructions and reconstructions of British childhood: an interpretative survey, 1800 to the present† in James, A. and Proat, A. (eds) Constructing and Reconstructing Childhood. Oxford, Clarendon Kemshall, H. 2002. Risk, Social Policy and Welfare Buckingham, Open University Press Lord Lamley â€Å"The Victoria Climbie Enquiry† http://www.victoria-climbie-inquiry.org.uk/finreport/finreport.htm Moore, S. Scourfield, P. Sinclair, S. Burch, S. and Wendon, B. 3rd ed. 2002 Social Welfare Alive Cheltenham, Nelson Thornes. Parrott, L 2002 Social Work and Social Care London, Routledge. Postle, F. (2000) The social work side is disappearing. I guess it started with us being called care managers, Practice, 13(2), pp. 13-27. Sidebotham, P. et al â€Å"Children at Risk of maltreatment in Children of the Nineties: deprivation, class and social networks in a UK sample† Child Abuse 26 (12) pp 1243-1259 1 Footnotes [1] Cited in Hemshall 2002 [2] Quoted in Hemshall, 2002::9 [3] http://www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/childrenactreport/docs/DfES-Childrens Act.pdf

Advertising and its classifications: jib fowles appeals in pandora’s jewelry ad. Essay

Advertising and Its Classification â€Å"Advertising Fifteen Basic Appeals† by Jib Fowles. Jib talks in his essay about how advertising enticesus us through imagery approaches,The power of imagery in marketing is substantal. We can becalled walking advertisements,from the jewelry we wear to the shoe’s on our feet we are promoteing brands and logos everyday. The ad for PANDORA Jewelry found in the December 2011, issue of Real Simple magazine,Pandora has a classy beutiful woman, wearing dark color clothing, looking in her husbends eyes longly. She has her left hand on her chin with a georgus set of rings, and some not as obvious pandora bracelets on her rist. The Pandora ad reads † UNFORGETTABLE MOMENTS† in the bottom righthand corner. This ad successfully illustrates three of Fowles’s appeals: the need for prominence, the need for attention, and the need to achieve. The first appeal we see at work in the ad is the need for prominence. Jib Fowles defines this need † To injoy prestige and high social status.† discribes it as â€Å"unambiguously classy†. we see the beutiful woman in the ad she is flawless not one frizzy har out of place her makeup is natural, and every thing is blurry in the background. That illustrates the jewelry is classy enouf to sell it’s self. Another way we see the need for prominence is, In the top left hand corner you see the set of rings seperated, it has three Eternity Ring’s priced at a woping $135.00 a peace, the heart and peral ring’s are $285.00 a peice. wearing such expencive peace’s are a way to say I am worth a lot and you should look up to me. The bottom left corner has a picture of an â€Å"O† in a box with a crown on top, this is a tradmark of Pandora. This tells us if we wear pandora jewelry we can also apear classy and injoy a high social status. Markters are targeting men in this ad, he clearly just gave his significant other the ring and she is gazing in his eyes sensualy. Promoters are enticing men with a promotional sale † Buy $150.00 dollers of pandora jewelry get a pandora ring valued up to $50.00 dollers free.† Men have an hunting gathering mentalidy, thay always want the best of things. It also seems to suggest that, if he gave his significant other this jewelry he will have an † Unforgettable moment† as well. The second appeal we see at work is the need for attention. Fowles defines this appeal as † The desire to exhibit ourselves in such a way to make others look at us is a primitive, insuppressible instinct.† He also discribes it as † wemon who want eyes upon them know what they should do.† The woman in this ad is wearing a suggestive lacy blouse, witch tells us she wants to be noticed. Every thing behind her is blury so all you see is her. As we see the need for attention still there are several other ways to sell jewelry, the ad out of Real Simple magazine for pandora, is similar to most other ad’s in differing magazines. The woman is receving a gift from a significant other, a peice of jewelry to make other women look twice at her. markters of this appeal are targeting wemon in this ad because we look to other wemon for trend setting peice’s. The advertiser chose this appeal wisley, all jewelry screams look at me. Consmers will want to purchase this ring because you can wear it in so many different ways, or one peice alone, eather way the peice stands doninant to what she is wearing. The final appeal in this ad acording to â€Å"Fowels Fifteen basic appels† is the need to achieve. Fowels defines this appeal as â€Å"The drive that energizes people, causing them to strive in their lives.† He also discribes it as a â€Å"need to attain a higher standard.† we see this appeal at work because the woman in the ad is not doing any thing but siting infront of her significant other with the look of achivement. She has the best significant other in her life, this is what her look tells us. Marketers are successfully useing this appeal. Men want to buy their woman this brand of jewelry because, Pandora’s collection is inspiring, hand-finished, it’s signature style, and it is a customizable jewelry line. The consumsr of this product wants a timeless orignal peace of jewelry. In this appeal, the need to achieve pulled from the December 2011, Real Simple Magazine Pandora ad, the target is a man because all you see in the ad is her wearing the ring set and some braclets. At the bottom of the ad you see a gift rap bow telling us he bought her the best gift a man can get a woman a ring symbolizing his love and comentment. This add successfully illstrated three of Fowles appeals, the need for prominence, the need for attention and the need to achieve. Fowles has taught us to be more conscious of the soliciting taking place every day. We  must train our brain’s to filter out the things we want from the things we need. Most imporantly to sheld our childern from the potentally self sabotaging labeling going on in the world today. We want our children to make up thier own minds on whats cool, not what promoters think is cool. Lets teach our kids to be unique all on thier own.

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Child Abuse A Social Problem - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 7 Words: 2036 Downloads: 1 Date added: 2019/04/08 Category Society Essay Level High school Tags: Child Abuse Essay Did you like this example? What is a social problem and how does one define it? According to author Robert Lauer, a social problem is defined as, a condition or pattern of behavior that contradicts some other condition or pattern of behavior; is defined as incompatible with the deserved quality of life; is caused, facilitated, or prolonged by social factors. Most times when looking at a social problem, we look at problems outside our homes when in reality we can encounter social problems under our own roof. I feel as though child abuse should be considered a social problem as it affects millions of children and society as a whole. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Child Abuse: A Social Problem" essay for you Create order Although this is a major issue, often times it is dismissed or not seen as a big problem by society or even the government. Child abuse is a major issue as children make our tomorrow, if children are being affected from a young age, they are likely to be affected when they are adults and that is not good for them nor society. Child abuse is a recurring issue in America and something jurassic needs to be done to eradicate this problem. In a recent journal titled, Child Abuse and Neglect/A Multidimensional Approach by Alexander Muela, he historically defines child abuse as,â€Å"all actions carried out by caregivers, which significantly interfere in the child’s optimum development and do not adhere to social standards, including things like emotional deprivation, malnutrition, child neglect and physical and emotional abandonment.† This definition touches on everything that shapes why child abuse should be defined as a social problem and not seen as a personal one. Children are the future and imagine if every child in the world were being abused? We would no longer have bright minds shaping the world, inventing new technology, coming up with different ideas to make the world a better place and most of all, we would have a lower population due to some cases leading to fatality. The issue of child abuse is a social problem, and we as a society need to find a solution. When looking at a social problem, one must first look at the who the issue affects and how they are affected. According to childtrends.org the number of child maltreatment cases/victims have risen from a whopping 860,000 to 1,032,000 over the past few years with the ratio of fifteen incidents to every one thousand children. The first figure alone was saddening but to know that cases have increased by such a disgusting amount should alert us all that there is an issue. Within all these cases, it is reported that younger children experience higher rates of abuse than older children. Statistics from Child Trends also reported that that children three and younger experienced more mistreatment and child abuse as compared to those who were older. Looking at this statistic, one could guess that this is because younger children cannot really do much about situations they are in. They cannot call and ask for help or really verbalize what is going on in their homes as compared to older children and this is in fact, very sad. As far as ethnicity goes it was also reported that Non-Hispanic Black children we amongst one of the most reported for child abuse and mistreatment in America. As a black woman, who was once a little black girl I am very disheartened by this. It is sad to know that children in the America are in danger and are being abused, with sometimes little to nothing being done over it. Where is the help for children three years old and younger who do not have a voice to cry out for help? The impact of child abuse is also important to look at when researching this, as people need to understand how what they’re doing is hurting these children. The impact of child abuse does not only include one thing, rather several. When a child has been abused, they are prone to physical/medical, mental, psychological, sociological and developmental issues. Physical abuse, according to Laurer can include, kicking, biting, choking and beating by parents, with a high risk of physical injury and possible disability as a result. Initially when a child is first abused, they feel immense pain almost immediately, suffering from results of previous beatings. In most cases children can suffer from injuries and in worst cases? death. If the child abuse is continuous and prolonged, it could lead to serious consequences for the child. Those were some short term effects of physical abuse, but the long term effects if the child is to survive, are far worse. Some possible long time effects of physical abuse are effects to mental health, lower self esteem, substance abuse (both drugs and alcohol) and a potential to be abusive to your own child as a pare nt. Physical abuse that starts early can affect a child years down the line when they are adults. We should see this as not just a problem, but a social problem because we are bringing these damaged people and adding them to our society. The psychological consequences are just as important to understand as the general effect of physical abuse. When children experience any form of mistreatment or neglect, they become at risk of developing mental illnesses such as anxiety, depression or even personality disorders. In a recent article published by childwelfare.gov, it was stated that over 54% of depression and attempted suicide cases in women were connected to their childhood experiences and negative events they endured in that childhood. Behavioral consequences are likely to also appear when children go through abuse. These children are more likely to have a difficult childhood as they can either keep to themselves or act out due to dealing with this mistreatment at home. These children are deprived of a childhood because they are constantly being abused and then develop a list of things even after the abuse has finished taken place. These things do not only impact these children, but also us citizens. We are the ones that have to be amongst these damaged kids, we are the ones that have to live amongst them and wonder what must have happened for them to be acting in such ways. Also, it affects our pockets as a society as well. We fund these different programs because there will be an increase in health care, juvenile detention centers for when the children act out, mental institutions for those admitted, substance abuse clinics and domestic violence centers. We indirectly fund all of these organizations because there is child abuse and something needs to be done to keep up with these programs. Most people hate the idea of an increase in anything where more money is being taken from them, so in order to stop this, we must come up with solutions that will put an end to this. With every change that needs to be made, I always say we must start with yourself. I feel as though there are two ways to look at this. One way to stop those abusing these children is to help/convict them and the other is to help kids that have been abused as best as we can. For instance, for those doing the abusing, it should be a societal standard to know when someone showcases traits of an abuser and to say something to a higher up. When that is done, said abuser should be further looked into, especially if they have a family, so abuse within the family can be eliminated. Often times, people feel too proud of seeking help for their issues but in a situation like this, help would be needed. For this action to be done, we must become more aware with traits of abusers. Teachers/professors should be making statements in classrooms about reporting abuse within families and let people know where to go for more information. For those who are not in school, I feel as though the media shou ld be utilized and more commercials should be placed on tv screens with information on abuse and where to go to learn more about it. As for the stoppage of abuse on victims and helping them, I researched thoroughly on what could be implemented to help them. In a Social Work Today article by Kimberly Day, there were a list of doable actions that can be implemented by organizations and the government that would prevent continuous child abuse and even worse, death because of child abuse. Some of these doable actions included expanding prevention services for at-risk families, the increase in qualifications of child protection workers, increase funding for child protective service and most importantly changes in confidentiality laws associated with child abuse. I feel as though these were all important actions that could actually make a change if implemented and funded by the government. If there was an expansion in prevention services that would mean more families would be educated on how to prevent child abuse from occurring, furthering eliminating the step of having events occur to an innocent child. This needs to occur on a national level as this issue is very serious and not something small. These are the lives of children and they matter. I also thought that the increase in funding for child protective services would do a lot for this social problem. With increase in funding from the government, more workers could be hired, meaning more children can be helped as more homes would be evaluated. Ideally, there would be enough funding to get well qualified, experiences people out on the field to make sure that these children were being placed in a safe location and ridden from any kind of abuse. Lastly, it would be very important for there to be changes made in the confidentiality laws associated with child abuse. This would do a lot for this social problem as more people would be able to come out and report any kind of abuse they see or hear from students. These actions can only be implemented if this issue is on a national level and there is a severity seen with child abuse as there is one with other social problems. To reiterate my earlier statement, child abuse is a social problem that must be eradicated as it not only affects the lives of the children, but society as a whole. There are hundreds of thousands of reported cases of child abuse in America and those are only the ones that are accounted for. Younger children are much more likely to be abused and that is disheartening because they can absolutely do nothing. When abused, children are more likely to be depressed, anxiety ridden, hesitant to form new relations, act out or become an abuser themselves. We as a society need to understand we can do something to change the cycle of damaged growing kids who reciprocate the treatment they received to their kids and so on. This cycle will never be broken as long as we sit back and do nothing. This social problem needs to be recognized as a national problem and the government needs to implement actions such as increasing funding, changing qualifications of child protective services and changing l aws of confidentiality when it comes to child abuse. These actions cannot happen over night as they will be a working progress, but we all need to band together to make this change. Children are our future, abuse is our current problem and needs to become a problem of the past. Work Cited Child Maltreatment. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.childtrends.org/indicators/child-maltreatment Child Welfare Information Gateway. (2013). Long-term consequences of child abuse and neglect. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Children’s Bureau. Day, K., MSW. (n.d.). What Will It Take to End Child Abuse Fatalities in the United States? Retrieved from https://www.socialworktoday.com/archive/exc_042911.shtml Effects of child physical abuse. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.secasa.com.au/pages/child-physical-abuse-understanding-and-responding/effects-of-child-physical-abuse/ Lauer, R. H., Lauer, J. C. (2013). Social problems and the Quality of Life. New York: McGraw-Hill Education. Muela, A. (2012). Interaction Design for Preventing Child Abuse. Child Abuse and Neglect A Multidimensional Approach. doi:10.5772/48130