Academic literature on the topic 'Child abuse allegations'

Objective To explore relevant literature about sexual abuse allegations arising in child custody disputes. Method A literature review of false allegations is given and the contribution of gender bias to this issue is discussed. The role a child psychiatrist may play in such cases is outlined. Results Contrary to much popular and professional opinion, sexual abuse allegations are found in only 2% of child custody disputes, and, of these, 8% to 16.5% are false. While false allegations arise for a variety of reasons, the word “false” can imply both erroneous and deceitful activities. This ambiguity, along with gender bias, may lead to disbelief of, and blame towards, parents who report sexual abuse in the context of a dispute about custody or access. Conclusion The child psychiatrist who testifies in such custody disputes should have caution, humility, and an open mind both in the courtroom and in dealing with other professionals working in this area.

Includes bibliographical references
False child sexual abuse allegations in divorce and custody proceedings are a disconcerting problem in South Africa having devastating effects on the family unit going through a divorce, and on society as a whole. Limited research has been done in South Africa on the subject matter (Janse Van Rensburg, 2008; McDonald, 1998; Preller, 2014).This study utilize General System's Theory, the Theory of Reasoned Action, the Theory of Planned Behaviour and the Crisis Theory to explore the subject matter. An explorative qualitative approach with a constructivist epistemology was utilised. The participants in this study involved thirty key informants, who included social workers, psychologists, counsellors and other professionals who specialise in divorce, custody and sexual abuse matters. A further five falsely accused parents and five accusing parents formed part of the sample. The data collection method used was that of in-depth interviews and research assistants were trained and appointed to gather the information. Notes were taken and the interviews were recorded to enable the necessary data analysis. Content and thematic data analyses were used to analyse the data and obtain the necessary results. The research findings indicate that false child sexual abuse allegations have a detrimental effect on the accused parent and explain the agony, severe trauma and emotional distress the falsely accused parent go through. There are various factors contributing towards false child sexual abuse allegations and results show that the impact of such allegations is11detrimental to the family system, the child and the falsely accused parent and brings disequilibrium to the family system that is very difficult to restore post-divorce. The mental health perspective on false child sexual abuse paints a rather bleak picture of the legal and social system and on adequately addressing the social issues at hand. Results highlight that false allegations are a complicated phenomenon and not all professionals nor the courts have the necessary skills to deal adequately with these matters. Research recommends amendments to South African Policy and Legislation, changes to the South African court system, and capacity building of mental health professionals. As this research is a ground-breaking study in South Africa, as no scientific research has been published on the subject matter, this study should be used as a basis for future research studies.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 124-133).
The two studies conducted focus on the processes for addressing allegations of child sexual abuse (CSA) in South Africa. A comprehensive literature review revealed some of the pitfalls in South African systems for dealing with CSA allegations including a lack of guidelines for assessing allegations and insufficient research in the area. In the first study, mental health and legal/forensic professionals completed a questionnaire designed by the researcher to investigate the criteria they would use to establish the veracity of an allegation of sexual abuse. An indication of the degree of relevance of certain criteria (e.g. 'medical evidence of abuse') to assessment was established based on these results. In general, the responses of the two groups correlated but there were seven criteria on which they differed. Many of the participants also provided specific criteria in response to qualitative questions asking if there were any criteria they believe indicate that an allegation is definitely true or definitely false, indicating a belief that there are certain factors that conclusively point to sexual abuse and other factors that unambiguously indicate that an allegation is fictitious.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior
Esta pesquisa teve por objetivo compreender como vêm sendo desempenhadas as práticas dos psicólogos que atuam em instituições de referência para atendimentos em casos de alegação de abuso sexual contra a criança. Para este fim, foram analisadas as declarações de dez pais acusados de abusar sexualmente dos filhos, por meio de questionário enviado e recebido por correio eletrônico. Este material permitiu apreender como os pais acusados compreendem a alegação de abuso sexual imputada contra eles e como operam no sentido de provar a inocência. Também foi possível registrar-lhes as impressões, dúvidas e sentimentos eliciados pelas acusações, o que deu subsídio à realização de entrevistas presenciais com psicólogos em etapa posterior. Foram realizadas entrevistas individuais semiestruturadas com cinco psicólogas de cinco instituições diferentes. As informações prestadas permitiram analisar aspectos como a abordagem teórica e os métodos de avaliação psicológica em casos de alegações de abuso sexual contra criança, incluindo uma discussão acerca da ocorrência de falsas denúncias de abuso sexual. A partir dessas informações, foi possível concluir que tais práticas tendem a privilegiar a palavra da criança, esta última, vista, por muitos, como aquela que deverá anunciar e qualificar a denúncia. Nesses termos, os pais são silenciados, enquanto as crianças são colocadas no lugar de responsáveis por decidir questões jurídicas em nome de seus direitos.
This research intended to understand how is being done the work of the psychologists who work in attendance institutions in cases of alleged child sexual abuse. For this purpose, were analyzed the statements of ten fathers accused to abuse the child sexually through questionnaires sent and received by e-mail. This material allowed to apprehend how the accused fathers understand the allegation of sexual abuse inflicted against them and how they work to prove their innocence. It was also possible to get their impressions, doubts and feelings elicited from the indictment, which gave information to raise interviews with psychologists afterwards. Individual semi-structured interviews had been carried through with five psychologists from five different institutions. The given information had allowed to analyze aspects such as the theoretical approach and the psychological evaluation methods in cases of allegations of child sexual abuse, including a quarrel concerning the occurrence of false indictments of sexual abuse. From these information on, it was possible to conclude that such practical tends to privilege the childs speech, who will have to announce and define the indictment. In this order, fathers are silenced while the children are placed as responsible for deciding legal questions on behalf of their rights.

Doctor of Philospohy in Social Work
This research is concerned with decision-making in judgments made in the Family Court of Australia where there are allegations of child sexual abuse. The focus of the research is the identification of the concepts that are relied on in the assessment of these allegations by professionals providing evidence to the court and how judges determine what evidence should be given weight and relied on. This research was undertaken against a historical and current backdrop of scepticism about the veracity of child sexual abuse allegations in family law disputes, despite the heightened risk to children, and in particular to girls, after their parents separate and/or divorce. In this context the Family Court is also increasingly becoming a part of the child protection system as allegations of abuse are raised in hearings. This research has taken place in the period of time after the Reform Act (1995) and before new proposed legislation for 2006 was proclaimed. This research is based on a detailed thematic analysis of 21 judgments of first instance trials between 1997 and 2001 that were selected for the presence of a child sexual abuse allegation and at least two professionals disputing some aspect of the allegation. Twenty-five family members, including 18 mothers and four maternal grandmothers, made allegations about 28 family members, 21 of whom were fathers. Professionals who gave evidence included 11 child protection officers and 20 court-ordered private assessors (including 17 child and family psychiatrists, three clinical psychologists and 11 court counsellors). This research found that the context of the allegation, the family law litigation, had a dominant influence on how the allegations were assessed and interpreted: the impact of two influential paradigms, the separation and divorce and the legal/psychiatric paradigms, resulted in a reticence to test out the allegations of child sexual abuse made against fathers. Concepts from these paradigms were applied by court-ordered assessors and represented the sceptical conceptualisation of allegations of child sexual abuse as the product of the parental conflict, associated maternal anxiety and mental illness. In contrast, fathers were not scrutinised as closely against criteria for sex offending even when they made admissions relating to the allegations. Evidence from and about children was not central to the hearings and professionals who were in a position to present assessments of the child sexual abuse allegations to the court were discredited as a result of concerns about ‘contamination’ relating to criticisms of investigation and other methodological errors. In addition, allegations from children were frequently not fully examined or analysed by assessors or the judiciary. There were glimpses of a child-focused approach in a small number of hearings and, while there was no specialist assessment of the child sexual abuse allegations, there was evidence of specialist knowledge pertaining to domestic violence in cases in which there was a high level of evidence relating to serious domestic violence. This research has shown that there is a continuing influence of a sceptical paradigm in relation to the assessment of child sexual abuse allegations in the Family Court. It suggests that the scope of assessments needs to go beyond the usual scope of parental competencies to include an assessment of the propensity for child sexual abuse perpetration and the dynamics and effects of incest.

L’objectif principal de cette thèse de doctorat est de déterminer, à l’aide d’une grille d’observation des comportements parentaux après la séparation , si des catégories de la grille permettent de distinguer entre eux les couples parentaux où le risque de Détérioration du Lien Parent-Enfant en contexte de séparation conflictuelle (DLPE) est très élevé des couples parentaux où le risque de DLPE est très faible. De plus, trois objectifs secondaires s’ajoutent à notre objectif principal. Premièrement, nous avons tenté de voir s’il était possible de prédire les cas où les risques de DLPE sont très élevés. Deuxièmement, nous avons exploré comment la DLPE s’inscrit dans les conséquences pouvant découler de la séparation parentale. Et enfin, troisièmement, nous avons brièvement exploré la question des allégations d’agression sexuelle envers l’enfant dans les contextes de DLPE. Cette thèse est composée de deux articles et d’une note de recherche brève. Le premier article s’intitule En quoi et pourquoi les hommes et les femmes sont-ils affectés différemment par la séparation conjugale? Cet article est une recension critique de la littérature traitant des conséquences du divorce chez les adultes ainsi que des conséquences différentielles du divorce pour les hommes et les femmes. Dans cet article, des hypothèses explicatives quant à l’origine de ces diverses conséquences sont discutées et nous proposons de les conceptualiser sous la forme d’un éventail rendant compte des impacts tant positifs que négatifs, notamment à une extrémité du continuum où se retrouvent les dynamiques DLPE. Ce continuum sur lequel s’inscrit la DLPE permet de conceptualiser et de discuter de l’adaptation ou de la mésadaptation des individus face à la séparation. Dans cet article, notre regard sur la DLPE fait ressortir les lacunes de la recherche actuelle sur ce phénomène. Il ressort un manque flagrant de connaissances du contexte d’apparition du phénomène, de connaissances empiriques sur la question des allégations d’abus sexuel se produisant dans le cadre de telles dynamiques ainsi que de connaissances des caractéristiques et des comportements des individus qui y sont impliqués. Conséquemment, notre article met l’emphase sur la nécessité qu’une tradition de recherche se développe dans le domaine de la DLPE afin de clarifier tous ces aspects. Enfin, cet article met en lumière différents facteurs de risque et différents facteurs de protection susceptibles d’expliquer que le divorce ait des conséquences différentes chez les hommes et les femmes. Le deuxième article s’intitule Étude exploratoire des caractéristiques et des comportements de couples parentaux séparés engagés dans une dynamique de Détérioration du Lien Parent-Enfant. Cet article cherchait à déterminer si les couples parentaux séparés hautement à risque d’être engagés dans une dynamique de DLPE se distinguent des couples parentaux séparés dont le risque de DLPE est faible sur certaines variables. Nous avons étudié cette question auprès de notre échantillon de 82 couples parentaux séparés pour lesquels le risque de DLPE est évalué comme étant soit très faible (groupe de comparaison) ou soit très élevé (en tenant compte du fait que la mère ou le père soit le parent dénigrant). À cette fin, nous avons utilisé un instrument de mesure, la Grille d’observation de la Détérioration du Lien Parent-Enfant après la séparation (GODLPE), adapté de celui développé par Johnston, Walters, & Olesen, (2005). Les résultats obtenus à l’aide de tests d’analyse de variance et de khi-deux démontrent que les ex-couples du groupe de comparaison se distinguent des ex-couples du groupe où le risque de DLPE est très élevé par un mariage significativement plus long et un niveau de conflit plus élevé. Également, les résultats démontrent que les parents du groupe de comparaison, les parents dénigrés et les parents dénigrants se distinguent entre eux quant à leurs comportements coparentaux aliénants, à leur relation coparentale supportante, à leur relation coparentale méfiante et à leurs comportements de renversement de rôle. Finalement, notre étude révèle que la durée du mariage et l’intensité des conflits permettent de prédire le risque de DLPE. La note de recherche brève s’intitule Étude exploratoire des allégations d’agression sexuelle envers l’enfant dans un contexte de Détérioration du Lien Parent-Enfant. Cet note de recherche s’intéresse à ce qui a longtemps été considéré comme l’une des caractéristiques déterminantes des dynamiques de DLPE, soit les allégations d’agression sexuelle envers l’enfant professées par un parent à l’endroit de l’autre parent ou d’un membre de son entourage proche. Nous avons étudié cette question chez 82 couples parentaux séparés pour lesquels le risque de DLPE était évalué comme étant très faible ou très élevé. Les résultats indiquent qu’il n’existe aucune différence significative entre les groupes relativement à cette caractéristique. Cependant, les mères auraient davantage tendance à alléguer de tels abus que les pères. Enfin, aucune des allégations professées n’a été jugée suffisamment crédible pour que la Directeur de la protection de la Jeunesse (DPJ) juge nécessaire d’intervenir. Plusieurs hypothèses sont soulevées pour expliquer ces résultats.
The main goal of the present doctoral thesis was to determine whether certain items of an observation grid assessing parental behaviors following separation allow to distinguish parents whose risk of Deterioration of the Parent-Child Relationship (DPCR) is very high from those whose risk of DPCR is very low. This goal led to secondary objectives regarding the prediction of such dynamics, the issue of sexual abuse allegation toward the child in such situations, and the context in which this phenomenon appears in the context of parental separation. This thesis includes two articles and a brief note of research. The first article is entitled: How and Why Are Men and Women Affected Differently by Marital Separation? This article is a critical literature review regarding the consequences of divorce for adults as well as its differential impact on men and women. Explanatory hypotheses regarding the origin of these diverse impacts are discussed. Furthermore, this article offers a conceptualization of such impacts as a continuum, which takes into account the positive and as well as the negative consequences of divorce, such as the dynamics of DPCR following separation. Different risk factors and protective factors are also suggested. The second article is entitled: Exploratory Study of the Characteristics and Behaviors of Separated Couples Engaged in a Dynamic of Deterioration of the Parent-Child Relationship. This article discusses whether it is possible to distinguish, on certain variables, separated couples who are at high risk of being engaged in a dynamic of DPCR from those who are at low risk. This issue was studied among 82 separated couples for which the risk of DPCR was assessed as being very low or very high (in the latter case was distinguished the group where the mother was the denigrating parent from the group where the father was the denigrating parent). An instrument called the Deterioration of the Parent-Child Relationship Observation Grid (DPCROG), adapted from an instrument developed by Johnson, Walters, & Olesen, 2005, was used in the present study. Analyses of variance and chi-squared analyses were carried out and revealed that ex-couples in the group at high risk for DPCR distinguished themselves from ex-couples in the comparison group by a significantly longer marriage and a higher level of conflict. In addition, results of 2 X 2 repeated measures analyses of variance, as well as results of Tukey’s post-hoc tests, revealed that parents in the comparison group, denigrated parents, and denigrating parents differed from one another in terms of their alienating coparenting behaviors, their supportive coparenting relationship, their mistrustful coparenting relationship and their role reversal behaviors. Finally, results of Tukey’s post-hoc analyses and chi-squared analyses indicated that the length of marriage and the intensity of conflict allow to predict the risk of DPCR. The brief note of research is entitled: Exploratory Study of Child Sexual Abuse Allegations in the context of a Deterioration of the Parent-Child Relationship. This note of research is concerned with what has long been considered as one of the characteristics of the dynamics of DPCR: the allegation of child sexual abuse declared by a parent against the other parent or against people close to the other parent. This issue was studied among 82 separated couples for which the risk of DPCR was assessed as being very high or very low. The results indicated that there were no significant differences between groups in regards to these allegations. Furthermore, mothers seemed to have a greater tendency to allege such abuse in comparison to fathers. Finally, whereas none of these allegations were judged as sufficiently credible in order for the Direction de la Protection de la Jeunesse (DPJ) to intervene, several hypotheses were raised to explain this finding.

The name of the thesis: Approaches of Selected Institucions to Domestic Violence Allegations during the Divorce Proceedings The author: Bc. Petra Vašinová The tutor: PhDr. Miloslav Čedík Pages, marks: 64, 145 176 Separate attachments: 2 Bibliography includes 71 items Abstract: The diploma thesis deals with issues of allegations of domestic violence in the process of custody proceeding before the divorce as viewed by related institutions. The key research subject covers different procedures of selected workers in a case of an allegation. Based on the initial interviews a question came up if the institutions use inner guidelines to deal with possible situations of clients manipulating workers. The next subject were the workers' opinions of the issues and of the allegation charges and sentences. The theoretical scope of the thesis contains relevant information about divorce, parental conflict, manipulation, ways of solving such problems, consequences, parental alienation syndrome and information about allegation in both Czech and foreign researching. The research method that I used was the Interpretative phenomenological analysis and the data was collected using semi-structured interviews. Open and Selective coding were used to evaluate the data. Based on the above mentioned method it has been found...