Child maltreatment is a significant public health concern that affects children's health and well-being throughout their life. Children who are maltreated are at an increased risk of developing a disability or delay and are more vulnerable to a range of mental health-related problems, including depression, anxiety, substance abuse, criminality,…

Purpose: The Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act requires child welfare agencies to have provisions in place to refer young children to early intervention services, yet the socioemotional health needs of children are often challenging to recognize and treat effectively. This study reviews the substantive and psychometric properties of…

Treatment of very young children in foster care involves the complex dynamics of a child's trauma history, multiple relationships, and caregivers' and providers' feelings about working with the child welfare system. Through the story of a toddler removed from his parents and placed in foster care, the authors illustrate a model of combined group…

Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation's (OPRE's) Division of Child and Family Development (DCFD) is responsible for research and evaluation related to Head Start programs, early childhood development, childcare, child maltreatment, and child welfare services. OPRE's research in the area of child and family development focuses on young…

Legislation in the United States, such as the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act and the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act, mandates service system collaboration to meet the complex needs of young children with disabilities who have experienced abuse. This literature review examines extant literature related to young…

Young children birth through five years old in the United States are more likely to experience child maltreatment, subsequent child welfare system (CWS) involvement, negative developmental outcomes, and serious maltreatment-related injuries and death than older children. This research-to-practice brief provides a model for how early care and…

This 2015 state spotlight document describes how Alaska Part C improved the referral of children from Child Welfare to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Part C Program by an automated transfer of data from Child Welfare to Part C for substantiated cases of child maltreatment (i.e., child abuse and/or neglect).

In this article, the authors tell the story of one family's journey toward healing using the Child First home visiting and Circle of Security Parenting interventions. Parents with complex trauma histories frequently float through services for years looking for guidance to help them address their struggles. Often, these services do not offer…

This article provides an intervention to be used with young children in the foster care or adoption system. "Do You Ever Feel That Way? A Story and Activities About Families and Feelings" is a bibliotherapy-based intervention to be used with young children who have experienced removal from their homes due to abuse or neglect. The narrative tells…

Federal directives require that any child less than 3 years old with a substantiated case of abuse be referred to the early intervention (EI) system. This article details the need and presents a vision for a trauma-informed EI system. The authors describe two exemplary program models which implement this vision and recommend steps which the field…

This article reviews some sensitivity versus specificity imbalances in forensic investigations of child sexual abuse. It then proposes the development or further testing of additional approaches for those children who do not respond to the current, single-interview National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) protocol. Although…

The Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation's (OPRE's) Division of Child and Family Development (DCFD) is responsible for research and evaluation related to Head Start programs, early childhood development, child care, child maltreatment, and child welfare services. OPRE's research in the area of child and family development focuses on young…

Strengthening Families is a relationship-based child abuse and neglect prevention initiative started nationally in 2001 through a partnership between the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP) in Washington, DC. Thirty-five states and several thousand early childhood programs nationwide implement…

Objectives: Pediatric fractures suspicious for abuse are often evaluated in emergency departments (ED), although corresponding diagnostic coding for possible abuse may be lacking. Thus, the primary objective of this study was to determine the proportion of fracture cases investigated in the ED for abuse that had corresponding International…

Child maltreatment affects millions of children each year. health care providers are increasingly called upon to address such psychosocial problems facing many families. In this article, the authors describe a practical approach to further enhance pediatric primary care and make it more responsive to the needs of children and families. The Safe…