Child abuse refers to abuse of a child under the age of 18. There are subtypes of child abuse for example, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, and physical abuse. Emotional abuse refers to abuse that is psychological in nature with characteristics seen in the child which include feeling unhappy, frightened, distressed; they have a difficult time making friends, their attendance at school poor with poor academic achievement; and they show signs of malnourishment and physical neglect (Adults Surviving Child Abuse, 2015). Child sexual abuse (CSA) is defined clinically as “contacts or interactions between a child and an adult when the child is being used for sexual stimulation of the perpetrator or another person when the perpetrator …show more content…
Prevalence of neglect through self-report surveys include 27% reported some form of child neglect at least once during the past year, most common form was leaving a child alone even when the parent thought an adult should be present, 11% reported they were unable to ensure their children obtained the food they needed, and 2% reported an inability to care for their children adequately because of problem drinking (Barnett, Miller-Perrin, & Perrin, 2011). Risk factors for neglect of children include caregiver’s substance use/abuse, prior referrals for neglect to social agencies, more than one type of maltreatment during initial incident, and caregiver absence (Barnett et al., …show more content…
The CAPI is a tool that identifies risk factors that are associated with maltreatment that is present in the family which are based on psychological and social factors that are linked to the abusive behavior of the child’s parents and estimates potential of child maltreatment. It has a 160 items that is based on self-reporting in which the respondent is either chooses agree to state statement or disagree to statement (Campbell, 2007). An example of a scale that is in the CAPI is the physical abuse scale which deals with items such as distress, rigidity, unhappiness, problems with child and self, problems with family and problems with others (Campbell,