Alleviation of Child Abuse

Over the last decades, the formulation and implementation of various strategic approaches have not diminished the prevalence of child abuse in American society. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, protective service agencies dealt with three million referrals and found instances of child abuse and neglect among 826,000 children in 1999. Even the slight decrease in the reported rate of child abuse from 13 per 1,000 children in 1998 to 11.8 per 1000 children in 1999 was not a significantly positive result. This statistic did not take into account the fact that child abuse generates long-term effects that will not only adversely affect children, but also future generations of adults and society (cited in Reynolds and Robertson 3). Due to the complexity of the problem of child abuse, its alleviation requires a multi-pronged approach that addresses the needs and challenges confronted by families (both general and at-risk), professionals, policymakers and society in general. Only by adopting multiple perspectives and a comprehensive stance, which acknowledge the "psychosocial, medical and legal aspects" (Theodore and Runyan 168), can this problem be overcome. Therefore, in the remainder of this paper, diverse strategies targeted at the aforementioned groups families, professionals, policymakers and society will be described and discussed.

In alleviating child abuse at the familial level, Bethea highli