Stopping Child Maltreatment Before it Starts: Emerging Horizons in Early Home Visitation Services (SAGE Sourcebooks for the Human Services)

Early prevention of child maltreatment is most commonly delivered through home visitation services, with the goal of promoting a positive start in parenting to avert potential child abuse and neglect. **Stopping Child Maltreatment Before It Starts** introduces best practice principles for early home visiting, examining the contexts from which these strategies arise. An essential text for child welfare courses, this book will also appeal to practitioners and policy makers in the child abuse and neglect field. Early prevention of child maltreatment is most commonly delivered through home visitation services, with the goal of promoting a positive start in parenting to avert potential child abuse and neglect, Stopping Child Maltreatment Before It Starts introduces best practice principles for early home visiting, examining the contexts from which these strategies arise. Beginning with a discussion of the nature and etiology of physical child abuse and neglect, Guterman then examines the mechanisms by which child protective and early home visitation services have traditionally operated. The book explores best practice principles by providing a detailed'inside tour'of those practices that have been empirically linked with positive outcomes in serviced families. Guterman also discusses in detail ways how home visitation may more adequately address the problem of family substance abuse in reducing child maltreatment risk, and ways visitation can attend to social network and community influences and increase parent empowerment. An essential text for child welfare courses, Stopping Child Maltreatment Before It Starts will also appeal to practitioners and policy makers in the child abuse and neglect field. "Beginning with a discussion of the nature and etiology of physical child abuse and neglect, Guterman examines the mechanisms by which child protective and early home visitation services have traditionally operated. The book explores best practice principles by providing a detailed "inside tour" of those practices that have been empirically linked with positive outcomes in serviced families. Guterman also discusses in detail ways that home visitation may more adequately address the problem of family substance abuse in reducing child maltreatment risk."--Jacket The darkness of maltreatment, the rays of light in prevention Child maltreatment and early childhood The paradox of child protection, the promise of home visitation Inside early home visitation : core elements of service Making the connection with families : who receives and benefits from home visitation services? Combating dual abuse : addressing substance abuse in home visitation to prevent maltreatment Tapping social networks in home visitation Empowering parents in home visitation Revisiting home visiting. A local child protective services department fielded a call from a hospital reporting suspected child abuse against a 5-month-old white infant, Baby G, by the infant's 27-year-old father, Mr. L.