Parental sensitivity and nurturance are important mechanisms for establishing biological, emotional, and social functioning in childhood. Sensitive, nurturing care is most critical during the first three years of life, when attachment relationships form and parental care shapes foundational neural and physiological systems, with lifelong…

In the past few years, people have come to realize that family and child well-being are public health issues. Helping families and children be happy, healthy and resilient helps the larger community. This report will discuss various aspects of family life including the systems that exist to support them, ways families can have more positive…

Prevention and intervention programmes for children at risk aim to improve child well-being and resilience. They do so using both direct and indirect strategies, intervening with children but also considering broader contextual factors (such as family dynamics). Children's subjective well-being comprises five main components (physical health,…

The current "CalYOUTH Wave 2 Los Angeles County Report" presents findings from the "CalYOUTH Wave 2 Youth Survey," focusing on just study participants in Los Angeles County. Of all of the counties in California, Los Angeles County has the greatest number of children in foster care. Since child welfare services are administered…

The national Quality Improvement Center on early Childhood (QIC-eC) funded four research and demonstration projects that tested child maltreatment prevention approaches. The projects were guided by several key perspectives: the importance of increasing protective factors in addition to decreasing risk factors in child maltreatment prevention…

Many children raised in orphanages suffered ongoing child abuse and neglect including sexual abuse, and nearly all were denied an adequate education. This paper explores adult females' perceptions of the impacts on their education of child sexual abuse they suffered while living in orphanages in Australia. In-depth qualitative and anonymous…

Using longitudinal data on 1,813 children and parents from a nationally representative child-welfare sample, National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW), this study investigated physically abusive and neglectful parenting as mediating the effects of parent depression on child mental health by developmental stage. Findings from…

People with intellectual disabilities have poorer health than their non-disabled peers. They are also more likely to be exposed to a wide range of environmental adversities in childhood. Research undertaken in the general population has demonstrated that exposure to environmental adversity in childhood can have an adverse impact on health and…

Objectives: Attempts to understand the effects of maltreatment subtypes on childhood functioning are complicated by the fact that children often experience multiple subtypes. This study assessed the effects of maltreatment subtypes on the cognitive, academic, and mental health functioning of preadolescent youth in out-of-home care using both…

The causes and contexts of food insecurity among children in the U.S. are poorly understood because the prevalence of food insecurity at the "child" level is low compared to the prevalence of "household" food insecurity. In addition, caregivers may be reluctant to admit their children may not be getting enough food due to shame…

In this article we review the empirical evidence for the presumptions that children with disabilities are at increased risk for child maltreatment, and parents with disabilities are more likely to perpetrate child abuse and neglect. Challenges to the epidemiological examination of the prevalence of child maltreatment and disabilities are…

The Promising Practices Network (PPN) on Children, Families and Communities (www.promisingpractices.net) began as a partnership between four state-level organizations that help public and private organizations improve the well-being of children and families. The PPN website, archived in June 2014, featured summaries of programs and practices that…

The current study longitudinally examines the effects of child maltreatment, parenting, and disadvantaged neighborhood on victimization, delinquency, and well-being via running away and school engagement among a sample of 360 high-risk adolescents. Results of a path analysis revealed that parenting was associated with school engagement, running…

During in-depth, individual interviews, seventeen battered women involved in the public child welfare system discussed the effects of domestic violence on their children, and their strategies for protecting and supporting them. Most mothers articulated the detrimental effects of domestic violence on their children and coherent strategies to…

Taking account of the needs and views of children is problematic, particularly in Ireland where children have been "owned" by their parents and social policy has been directed at the family rather than the individual child. The 1980s and 1990s may be said to be the decades where abuse, in its many forms, reared its head and Irish society…