Neil B. Guterman

Intimate Partner Violence, Maternal Stress, Nativity, and Risk for Maternal Maltreatment of Young Children

OBJECTIVES We examined the associations of intimate partner violence (IPV) and maternal risk factors with maternal child maltreatment risk within a diverse sample of mothers. METHODS We derived the study sample (N=2508) from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study. We conducted regression analyses to examine associations between IPV, parenting stress, major depression, key covariates, and 4 proxy variables for maternal child maltreatment. RESULTS Mothers reported an average of 25 acts of psychological aggression and 17 acts of physical aggression against their 3-year-old children in the year before the study, 11% reported some act of neglect toward their children during the same period, and 55% had spanked their children during the previous month. About 40% of mothers had experienced IPV by their current partner. IPV and maternal parenting stress were both consistent risk factors for all 4 maltreatment proxy variables. Although foreign-born mothers reported fewer incidents of child maltreatment, the IPV relative risk for child maltreatment was greater for foreign-born than for US-born mothers. CONCLUSIONS Further integration of IPV and child maltreatment prevention and intervention efforts is warranted; such efforts must carefully balance the needs of adult and child victims.

Acculturation and parental attachment in Asian-American adolescents' alcohol use.

PURPOSE To test whether the degree of acculturation predicts subsequent alcohol use among Asian-American adolescents, and to test the moderating effect of parental attachment. METHODS This was a prospective study using a subsample of the National Longitudinal Adolescent Health data set. A nationally representative sample of 714 Asian-American boys (n = 332) and girls (n = 382) in grades 7-12 was analyzed. In-home self-report data were collected on two types of acculturation status, alcohol use, demographics, and parental attachment. After controlling for acculturation status and background variables at Wave I, logistic regression analysis was used to estimate the odds ratios to assess the association between acculturation and alcohol use at Wave II for adolescents. RESULTS Asian-American adolescents with the highest level of acculturation (English use at home, born in the United States) were identified as the highest risk group. For adolescents with low parental attachment, the odds of alcohol use were 11 times greater in the highly acculturated group than in the least acculturated group. However, the odds of alcohol use for adolescents with moderate or high levels of parental attachment did not vary across acculturation groups. CONCLUSIONS Overall, a greater level of acculturation was associated with greater alcohol use. However, when parental attachment was taken into account, highly acculturated adolescents with moderate or high parental attachment had no greater risk than adolescents with same levels of parental attachment who were less acculturated. Thus, it appears that acculturation per se was not a risk factor unless it was accompanied by a low level of parental attachment.

The Role of Fathers in Risk for Physical Child Abuse and Neglect: Possible Pathways and Unanswered Questions:

Despite overrepresentation of fathers as perpetrators in cases of severe physical child abuse and neglect, the role they play in shaping risk for physical child abuse and neglect is not yet well understood. This article reviews the possible father pathways that may contribute to physical child abuse and neglect risk and their existing empirical support. The present empirical base implicates a set of sociodemographic factors in physical maltreatment risk, including fathers’ absence, age, employment status, and income they provide to the family. As well, paternal psychosocial factors implicated in physical child maltreatment risk include fathers’ abuse of substances, their own childhood experiences of maltreatment, the nature of fathers’ relationships with mothers, and the direct care they provide to the child. However, the empirical base presently suffers from significant methodological limitations, preventing more definitive identification of risk factors or causal processes. Given this, the present article offers questions and recommendations for future research and prevention.

Early Prevention of Physical Child Abuse and Neglect: Existing Evidence and Future Directions

Early intervention approaches to prevent physical child abuse and neglect hold great promise, seeking to avert the problem before it ever occurs, while promoting positive parenting from the outset. This article synthesizes the rapidly expanding empirical base on early prevention, examining the support undergirding this modalitys overall effectiveness and directions it provides for discerning optimal prevention strategies. The 18 controlled studies in this area reveal a promising yet complex picture with regard to successful intervention designs. Several emerging trends point to (a) the essential role of parenting education support, (b) the importance of linking families with formal and/or informal supports, (c) the importance of coupling longer term interventions and those that employ paraprofessional helpers with a moderate to high degree of service intensity, (d) a clinical advantage for programs that employ universalistic intake procedures over those that screen for psychosocial risk, and (e) the importance of health education to reduce medically related maltreatment risks. Further, the review points to a number of significant directions for future program design and study, particularly with respect to adequately addressing parental powerlessness in the makeup of physical abuse and neglect risk.

The emerging problem of physical child abuse in South Korea

South Korea has had remarkably high incidence and prevalence rates of physical violence against children, yet the problem has received only limited public and professional attention until very recently. This article represents the first attempt in English to systematically analyze South Koreas recent epidemiological studies on child maltreatment. Discussed are sociocultural factors that have contributed both to delays in child protection laws and a low public awareness of the problem of child abuse. The article highlights methodological issues concerning the definition of physical abuse in South Korea and the complex attitudes toward violence. It also examines the role of the Korean womens movement in the reform of family laws and the recent establishment of new child protection legislation. Suggestions for future directions for the problem of child maltreatment within South Korea are presented.

Definitional and measurement issues in the study of community violence among children and youths

Scholarly attention to community violence exposure among children and youths has rapidly emerged over the past decade as recent data has revealed a problem of widespread proportions. While often profoundly consequential, the problem has not yet been well-understood or clearly defined, both conceptually and operationally. This article examines definitional and measurement complexities in the emerging study of community violence exposure among the young. In particular, it examines what is denoted and connoted by the terms “community” and “violence” in studies of community violence exposure, as well as the difficulties existing studies present in seeking to capture a clear understanding of the problem. A set of recommendations for addressing definitional and operatonal difficulties is offered toward promoting a more systematic effort in studying the problem and its consequences.

Advancing Prevention Research on Child Abuse, Youth Violence, and Domestic Violence Emerging Strategies and Issues

Prevention research on the related problems of child abuse, youth violence, and domestic violence has grown at an accelerating pace in recent years. In this context, a set of shared methodological issues has emerged as investigators seek to advance the interpersonal violence prevention knowledge base. This article considers some of the persistent methodological issues in these areas and points out emerging research strategies that are forging advances in garnering valid, rigorous, and useful knowledge to prevent interpersonal violence. Research issues and emerging strategies in three key domains of prevention research are considered, including complexities in validly conceptualizing and measuring varying forms of violence as specific targets for preventive intervention, research issues and strategies designed to reliably predict and identify future violence risk to be targeted by preventive intervention, and research issues and emerging strategies in the application of empirical methods to forge specific advances in preventive intervention strategies themselves.

Paternal Psychosocial Characteristics and Corporal Punishment of Their 3-Year-Old Children

This study uses data from 2,309 biological fathers who participated in the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study (FFCWS) to examine associations between psychosocial characteristics and levels of corporal punishment (CP) toward their 3-year-old children over the past month. Results indicate that 61% of the fathers reported no CP over the past month, 23% reported using CP once or twice, and 16% reported using CP a few times in the past month or more. In multivariate models controlling for important sociodemographic factors as well as characteristics of the child, fathers’ parenting stress, major depression, heavy alcohol use, and drug use were significantly associated with greater use of CP, whereas involvement with the child and generalized anxiety disorder were not. Girls were less likely to be the recipient of CP than were boys, and child externalizing behavior problems but not internalizing behavior problems were associated with more CP.

Perception of job satisfaction, service effectiveness and burnout among Arab social workers in Israel

Over the past three decades, the topics of job satisfaction and burnout have become a major focus of interest in research and professional training in the field of social work. However, there is a serious lack of studies focusing on these issues in the context of Arab social workers in Israel. This paper presents the results obtained from a subsample of Arab participants in a national study of Israeli social workers. It focuses on the correlations between several career outcomes and organizational conditions such as role characteristics, work conditions, job mastery, and power. Challenge at work and job mastery were found to be the most significant and consistent predictors of the outcome results. The implications of the results are also discussed.

Community violence exposure and associated behavior problems among children and adolescents in residential treatment

Abstract Community violence exposure is increasingly recognized as playing an important role in the presenting behavioral profiles of children and adolescents, although little is known about the specific role played among children and adolescents served in mental health settings. This cross-sectional study reports findings on the lifetime rates of community violence exposure in a sample of 101 children and adolescents living in residential treatment, and the associations between such exposure and their presenting behavior problems. A total of 41% of the study participants reported they had been severely physically victimized, and 80% stated they had witnessed severe physical victimization. After controlling for background variables, hierarchical regression analyses indicated that sexual victimization and, to a lesser degree, personal physical victimization selectively predicted greater behavior problems, whereas witnessed physical violence predicted fewer behavior problems overall. These findings highlight a need to conduct multidimensional assessments of violence exposure among children and adolescents in residential and other mental health settings.