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Una guida completa e aggiornata agli strumenti di conoscenza degli effetti che il trauma può avere in età evolutiva, insieme a indicazioni per il loro trattamento. Al giorno d’oggi sono ancora troppi i bambini e le bambine vittime di violenze non riconosciute e per questo non protetti e aiutati. La ricerca scientifica ha dimostrato come le persone reagiscano alla violenza, ai disastri naturali, alla perdita di figure di attaccamento, alle malattie, al terrorismo e alla guerra manifestando sintomi di natura cognitiva, emotiva e fisica. I bambini e le bambine che sperimentano ripetute esperienze traumatiche presentano un rischio elevato di sviluppare, in età adolescenziale e nella giovane età adulta, disturbi psicopatologici come il disturbo da stress post-traumatico, disturbi d’ansia, disturbo ossessivo-compulsivo e, nei casi più gravi, psicosi o disturbi dell’umore. Non tutti i minori esposti a un trauma sviluppano però disturbi psicopatologici, come mai? Questo libro cerca di rispondere a questa e a molte altre domande grazie al contributo di psicologi, neuropsichiatri infantili e ricercatori impegnati nella cura di bambine e bambini vittime di abusi e maltrattamenti subiti in età pediatrica.

Il saggio approfondisce la tematica del maltrattamento e abuso all'infanzia, attraverso le definizione delle diverse forme di violenza a danno dei minori, e propone il "Protocollo sui fattori di rischio e di protezione" come utile strumento per la valutazione delle situazioni di pregiudizio familiare.

Traumatic play in Play Therapy. In psychological assessment and intervention with children, therapists need an approach not based on verbal language, because young children frequently have difficulty verbalizing their feelings. Clinic and research evidence suggest that play could be an appropriate therapeutic mode, because it provides an appropriate and safe environment for children to communicate and express their emotions and feelings, even with traumatized children. Play, through symbolic material, provides a safe psychological distance from their problems and allows expression of thoughts and feelings. The present article, drawing from literature, outlines the main structural characteristics of Play Therapy, focusing on trauma¬tic play. Research supports the effectiveness of Play Therapy with children experiencing a variety of social, emotional, behavioral, and learning problems, including children whose problems are related to traumatic experiences, such as physical and sexual abuse.

Integrated clinical treatment in child abuse. The aim of this article is to present an analysis of the psychological interventions developed in eight years of activity within a specializing service in the treatment for situations of child injury cases reported to the Social Services. The purpose of the monitoring was to verify the effectiveness of the integrated psychological- clinical model. The results allow some theoretical and operational considerations concerning the validity of the used model in the treatment of childhood violence cases. The research confirmed the importance of assessing of the recoverability of parenting skills as a tool to guide the implementation of the most appropriate measures for the child treatment, leading also to a positive result of the familiar crises, but differentiated by the seriousness of the initial condition of the risk.

Il disegno della famiglia è da molti autori ritenuto uno strumento utile nel rilevare la situa- zione relazionale familiare nei casi di abuso sessuale. Nel tentativo di mettere in luce il ruo- lo assunto dalle componenti ambientali e da quelle innate nella rappresentazione grafica di bambini sessualmente abusati, è stato condotto uno studio pilota in cui si sono confrontati i disegni della famiglia realizzati da bambini, vittime di violenza sessuale, italiani (N = 24) e tailandesi (N = 17), di età compresa tra 6 e 13 anni. I nostri dati mettono in luce come il Disegno della Famiglia possa essere considerato, in entrambi i contesti culturali esaminati, un utile ausilio per analizzare aspetti cognitivi, affettivi ed emotivi del bambino, in grado di riflettere la percezione dell’ambiente familiare e sociale e i vissuti rivolti al sé e agli altri., The family drawing test is currently considered by many authors a useful tool in identifying the overall quality of family relationships in cases of sexual abuse. It was conducted a pilot study with the aim of highlight the role played by both environmental and innate features of graphic representations of sexually abused children. This study compared family drawing tests made by Italian (N = 24) and Thailand (N = 17) children victims of sexual abuse, aged between 6 and 13 years. Our data highlight that the Family drawing test can be considered, a useful tool to analyze cognitive, affective and emotional health of the child, in both cul- tural contexts examined. This research also shown that the test can be used as a mean of detecting the child’s own perception of his family and his social background.

This study analyses the phases of the criminal trials in the Milan Court for sexual abuse against minors. Objective of the study is to identify both the timing of the various phases of the criminal trial and the characteristics of the victims, perpetrators, forms of violence and the concluding verdict. The study was carried out thanks to consultation with two sources: a) the database of the Court (Re.Ge. 2.2.) which contains brief information on the accused, the victims, the phases of the proceedings, b) 123 dossiers contain more complete data, (also qualitative) on the procedures adopted in the trial. Through the Re.Ge. database we examined all the criminal trial proceedings, 529 in number, registered from March 1996 to March 2003 and through the 123 dossiers we examined 160 victims of 153 accused.

Decision making is generally an uncertain process and in social practice is oriented towards identifying, assessing and quantifying risk. Risk can be defined as a social construct and it refers to both the likelihood of a specific event and the severity of that event. This article provides an overview of the context in which decision about risk are made in child welfare including personal and environmental factors. The recent risk assessment tools/models, useful to assess whether or not the abuse has occurred and/or if it is likely to occur in the future, are considered. The literature classifies these models under primarily two headings: consensus based instruments (with items that are included based on the clinical judgement of experts) and actuarial instruments (items included are empirically identified by studying child abuse cases referred to social services and maltreatment outcomes). Moreover the “safety” concept is discussed: its assessment focuses on the risk of severe harm in the immediate future so that short-term decisions can be made.

he principal function of Child Protective Services is to protect children from prospective harm episodes and identifying risk of maltreatment is certainly of paramount import. The primary objective of risk assessment is to identify, from cases referred to child welfare authorities, the subgroup of children at high risk of future abuse or neglect so that action may be taken to pre-vent it. To improve the consistency and effectiveness of CPS investigation and case planning for families involved in the child protection system, the aim of this study is to improve the Protocol of risk and protective factors (Di Blasio, 1997, 2005), a risk assessment instrument for familial maladjustment. Social records of 400 families, referred to social services for child abuse and/or maltreatment and/or neglect, and intervention carried out (child out-of-home placement or monitoring and parental abilities support) are analyzed. Results show that Protocol’s risk and protective factors are able to discriminate between families at high vs. low risk, and especially distal factors are good risk predictive.

L'introduzione al focus presenta i tre lavori che lo costituiscono e che hanno l'obiettivo di permettere al lettore di affinare le proprie conoscenze sulla trascuratezza, cercando di delineare un quadro teorico e sperimentale che permetta di capire meglio quali sono le sue caratteristiche, le cause e l’incidenza, unitamente ad una carellata da una parte sui principali segni e sintomi utili ad una classificazione, e dall’altra sugli effetti che la trascuratezza provoca.