Child Abuse: A Socio-Environmental Perspective – Part 2

This article, the second in a series of two, builds on the practice implications of the socio-environmental model of child abuse. The identification in this model, of necessary and sufficient conditions for occurrence of child abuse, leads to the conclusion that effective prevention and management can only be brought about by approaches which create nurturing conditions for all families. Helping programs must be intimately involved in the community of the families they serve – not only by integrating formal and informal networks, but also by promoting community involvement in the definition of community standards of adequate parenting, and in long term support of vulnerable families.

The present articles present some ideas as to how this can be achieved. Social support network theory gives some suggestions of the potential of social supports to provide a variety of resources and to counteract the social supports to provide a variety of resources and to counteract the social isolation identified by the socio-environmental model as an important necessary condition of child abuse. The article concludes by looking briefly at some practice approaches which attempt to maximize the availability and effectiveness of social support.