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This paper describes two studies investigating the interrater agreement of severity scales for family maltreatment used in America's largest child and family maltreatment agency: the U.S. military's Family Advocacy Program (FAP). The USAF-FAP Severity Index is a multidimensional rating system for clinicians' evaluations of the severity of seven forms of family maltreatment: partner physical, emotional, and sexual abuse; child physical, emotional, and sexual abuse; and child neglect. The first study evaluated the reliability of the scale as it is used in the field. The second study compared a generalizable sample of clinicians' ratings to an established "gold standard" of what the ratings should have been. The Severity Index demonstrated fair-to-good levels of reliability, suggesting that with minimal cost, investigating caseworkers can routinely assess, and make fairly reliable ratings of, the severity of seven forms of family maltreatment for each case they investigate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Childhood exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) has increasingly been studied as a distinct form of child maltreatment with negative outcomes that can last well beyond childhood. The purpose of this study is to examine teen dating violence (TDV) involvement among adolescents who were exposed to IPV in early childhood while controlling for other known risk factors of TDV. We analyze longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to investigate the relation between early childhood IPV exposure (Years 1 and 3) and involvement in TDV (Year 15), controlling for parenting behaviors (Year 5), early onset delinquency (Year 9), and other sociodemographic characteristics (baseline). IPV exposure significantly increased TDV involvement, particularly for physical abuse and economic abuse (effect sizes of 0.34 and 0.15, respectively). Based on these findings, providers should implement frequent, comprehensive prenatal and perinatal IPV screenings, referring patients to community services as needed. Also, school-based interventions that promote healthy relationship skills may be targeted to adolescents with early IPV exposure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite wide recognition that increased social support is associated with positive parenting behaviors, there is limited understanding regarding the mechanisms through which the neighborhood context can increase or hinder social connections. In a sample of 1,050 parents in Franklin County, OH, this study examines the role of availability of social services in child maltreatment. Through negative binomial regression, the study finds that greater availability of social services is associated with lower levels of child abuse and neglect. Additionally, the availability of social services moderates the relationship between social support and child maltreatment, such that the relationship between social support and child maltreatment is weaker for parents in neighborhoods with greater availability of services. The findings suggest that increasing services and awareness of such services might be an opportunity for child maltreatment prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children who experience trauma due to exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) have been shown to exhibit higher than average rates of cognitive, psychological, and emotional impairments. Our research uses the first five waves of the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study to examine the effects of exposure to intimate partner violence in early childhood (as measured by their mothers' experiences with physical violence and economic abuse) on delinquency at age nine . It also investigates whether these effects are mediated by parental involvement and exposure to child neglect and physical punishment. Results indicate that children's exposure to IPV at Year 1 and Year 3 had direct effects on their tendency toward delinquent behavior at Year 9, and that parental involvement, child neglect, and physical punishment also had significant mediating effects. Given the importance of early delinquency to later achievement, the findings may provide implications for early intervention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assessed the relationship between residential density and two types of child maltreatment, abuse and neglect, by using aggregate data to test two models of density effects." (a) density as an intervening variable, and (b) density as a spurious relation. To test the models, child abuse and child neglect reporting rates for 202 Baltimore, Maryland census tracts were regressed on census tract population characteristics measuring class, ethnicity, and residential density. Results are inconclusive for density measured as percent of households with 1.01 or more persons/room because of a high degree of collinearity between density and structural variables. Results for density measured as 1.51 or more persons/room support the density as an intervening variable model. Considering that Baltimore, Maryland's household crowding rate is very close to that of the rather low U.S. average, findings suggest that despite improvements in residential density over the last 30 years, crowding still negatively impacts on some families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]