History, facts and statistics

Obviously the intensity of child neglect cases would vary. A minor case for example would be a young child arriving on a regular basis at their early childhood setting with their diaper unchanged, yet the more extreme case would be parents or caregivers ignoring their health and nutritional needs, and providing them with inadequate food and water supplies. Howe (2005) explains that children that are neglected become the “easy targets of peer taunts, rejection and bullying” (p. 111).

Research shows that there are common historical risk factors for children who are neglected. These include “previous referrals to neglect, number of children in the home, social isolation, stress, unemployment or financial stress, caregiver history of substance abuse, caregiver history of victimization as a child and lack of support services for families” (OCAR, 2005).

I believe that neglect can also occur unintentionally. There are many families living in our society that struggle to provide for their children because of low levels of employment, and poor housing for example. In this case these children would be receiving the love and care they require but other sections would be low.

I found it exceedingly interesting to find out that New Zealand is rated the “third highest for child homicide through maltreatment” (Chamberlain, 2006). This amazes me considering New Zealand’s population is a lot smaller than the majority of other countries around the world.

I was difficult for me to find specific statistical information on child neglect in New Zealand although what I did discover was some interesting child abuse statistics which highly relates as neglect has been proven to be the most common type of child abuse. This is shown within the image below (Ellis, 2013).

Governor-General Dame Silvia, explains at a conference held in Wellington in 2006 about “New Zealand’s shameful rates of child abuse” (Chamberlain, 2006). In the year 2005, 53,000 cases were documented, 43,400 of these required follow up and this resulted in 13,017 cases of confirmed abuse (Chamberlain, 2006). This information was found online through the EIT database system.

Child youth and family received 49,063 reports of abuse that required further action in 2006. (“Recent statistics: Are you ok?”, n.d.).

I now wish to investigate whether New Zealand child neglect statistics are increasing or decreasing over years?

In New Zealand during the years 2000-2009, hospital administrations for injuries arising from the assault or maltreatment of children declined gradually which I found pleasing to see, and as you can see within the graph below on average during the years 2000-2009 eight children per year died as a result of injuries arising (“The children’s social health monitor New Zealand”, 2009).

 

Research shows that neglect rates are a lot higher for infants and children aged over eleven years which I found extremely interesting, this same website also provided me with information regarding trends by ethnicity, it explained here that “hospital administrations for injuries arising from assault, neglect or maltreatment were constantly higher for Māori and Pacific children” than for children of other ethnicities such as European. (“The children’s social health monitor New Zealand”, 2009)

In my next blog I wish to discover the effects that neglect has on children’s learning and development!