CMAS - L01 - Introduction and History of Child Maltreatment Flashcards
Child Maltreatment
a young person especially between infancy and puberty
a person not yet of the age of majority
a son or daughter of human parents
an unborn or recently unborn person
Maltreatment
to treat cruelly or roughly: abuse
Abuse (noun)
As a noun:
a corrupt practice or custom
improper or excessive use of treatment
language that condemns or vilifies usually unjustly, intemperately, and angrily
physical maltreatment
Abuse (verb)
As a verb:
to put to a wrong or improper use
to use excessively
to use or treat so as to injure or damage
to attack with words
Changing view on children
While there was recognition of a child’s vulnerability and need for protection is noted between the 6th and 14th century the perception of a shift occurs during the Reformation
When was Reformation
16th century
During the 16th century, children were subjected to beatings or corporal punishment within their educational system by their schoolmaster, a method of discipline still utilized in some schools across the United States
17th Century - John Locke
Philosopher John Locke saw children as empty vessels or “blank slates.” To Locke, children were seen as nothing at all, whose character had to be shaped through purposeful and diligent instruction by the child’s parents. Locke subscribed to the belief that a child’s character could be shaped through rewarding good behavior, a theoretical view that is further explored and defined in the mid-twentieth century
18th Century
In the 18th century, Jean-Jacques Rousseau contradicted Locke’s theory. Rousseau believed children were born as “noble savages” who were naturally bequeathed a moral compass of right and wrong. Further, Rousseau identified children as having their own unique way of feeling and thinking and that if not careful, parents could be harmful rather than helpful to their child’s development.
The understanding of child development and the role of parents and society in that child’s development continue to take shape into the 19th and 20th centuries.
Likewise, as society’s understanding of how children develop and the rights of children become realized, a progressing call to meet the needs of children who are abandoned or abused takes shape.
New York Children’s Aid Society (1853)
30,000 children living on city streets begging, stealing, and scavenging for food in the garbage.
Charles Loring Brace founded the New York Children’s Aid Society following his shock to learn that children he saw on the street were being treated as criminals and being incarcerated in juvenile and adult prisons.
The New York Children’s Aid Society established a number of programs, in an effort to encourage children to obtain an education and/or a job. The Aid Society also provided children with clean clothes, shelter, food, and a number of other services for children.
Who created the Orphan Train Program & Goal
Charles Loring Brace
goal was to remove children from orphanages and almshouses and place them within families outside of New York City. Brace had a philosophical belief that “life in an institution did not prepare children for life outside
Orphan Train Program locations
NY, PA, and eventually the midwest.
What laid the foundation for foster care program
The Orphan Train
What stoped the Orphan Train and when
The Orphan Train came to a halt in the 1920s due to a number of reasons; however, most notably was legislation being passed to prevent the interstate placement of children.
Mary Ellen Wilson Case (1874)
Ms. Etta Wheeler, a local missionary responding to concerns from a neighbor.
Ms. Wheeler sought the help and advice of Henry Bergh. Mr. Bergh was the founder of the American Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NYSPCC) - 1875
The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NYSPCC) was developed following the Mary Ellen Wilson case and became the first child protection agency in the world. The founders of the NYSPCC founders laid the framework and basic principles of the child abuse laws in the United States.