Childhood Sexual Abuse & Youth Runaway Behavior

Childhood Sexual Abuse & Youth Runaway Behavior

As just noted, one finding that has been repeatedly observed in the childhood sexual abuse and runaway literature is that sexually abused children often runaway from home as teens. This can be seen in a study conducted by Feitel, Margetson, Chamas and Lipman (1992) who interviewed 140 clients (aged 13-22 years) receiving services in a shelter for homeless youths in New York City. The authors were specifically interested in obtaining information about runaways' backgrounds as well as the incidence of diagnostically valid behavioral and emotional disorders of those young people seeking help from the shelter.

Interview data revealed that most of the teens using the shelter came from backgrounds characterized by severe emotional deprivation as well as physical and/or sexual abuse. In terms of psychological and emotional disorders, of the 140 youths who completed the full interview, 90 percent fulfilled Diagnostic and Stati

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in prostitution are at greater risk for contracting and transmitting human immunodeficiency virus. Extrapolating these findings, it can be seen that sexually abused youth are more likely to runaway, more likely to engage in prostitution after they leave, more likely to engage in high-risk behaviors, and therefore more likely to contract the HIV virus. Given that many runaways are children who have been sexually abused, a key question is what can child welfare services do for these children before they decide to handle the situation through running away? In an extensive study of child welfare services and runaways, Kufeldt (1991) stated that services may contribute to, rather than ameliorate the problem since in many cases it was found that runaways have not left home but rather have left state institutions and services in which they were placed as a consequence of abuse (both sexual and physical) and/or neglect in the home. Specifically, the authors noted that their data suggested a connection between family makeup (exposure to family breakdown, being the victim of physical and/or sexual abuse), substitute care, and running behavior. They found a reluctance on the part of the state to intervene if parents were available, esp
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Pennbridge Swofford, DSM III-R, Summary Conclusions, Adolescent Health, Kurtz Jarvis, Social Policy, Simons Whitbeck, Pennbridqe Swofford, MacKenzie Yates, Chamas Lipman, sexual abuse, childhood sexual, childhood sexual abuse, sexually abused, physically abused, homeless youth, runaway behavior, runaway youth, runaway teens, involved prostitution, conduct disorder, special issue homeless, issue homeless youth, youth journal adolescent, homeless youth journal,
Approximate Word count = 2877
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)

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