Neglect Toolkit

Using This Toolkit

The purpose of this toolkit is to assist CBCAP state lead agencies (SLAs) and their partners in understanding neglect and the complexity of this issue, as well as promising approaches and strategies to address it. More public awareness is necessary to strengthen prevention initiatives and better protect children from the harm that neglect can cause.

 

Each section includes information, specific examples, and links to resources. We hope you find this toolkit helpful to your work and look forward to your feedback, including suggestions and additions to make it more useful. If you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to admin@friendsnrc.org.

Mother And Son Looking Out Of Window

Understanding Neglect

To understand neglect, it is important to first define it and then, learn how to identify it. Unfortunately, defining and identifying neglect are no easy tasks. Historically, there have been inconsistencies across policies, practice and research. But, because neglect is so pervasive and so frequently intertwined with and a product of the challenges families face, it is critical that CBCAP state lead agencies, their grantees and partners try to understand it and consider strategies to raise awareness of and prevent neglect in their states and communities.

Child Neglect is the most prevalent form of child maltreatment.

According to the most recent federal data,1 as in prior years, of those children reported by states as experiencing neglect and abuse, the greatest percentage of children suffered from neglect (74.9%). Physical abuse was reported far less frequently, at 17.5%.

Federal law does not provide specific definitions for neglect. However, federal legislation that authorizes CBCAP – the Federal Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) (42 U.S.C.A. § 5106g) as amended by the CAPTA Reauthorization Act of 2010 – does provide guidance to states in creating their own legal definitions.

However,  it does include abuse and neglect together, as a set of acts or behaviors. At minimum, these include:

  • “Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation”;
  • “An act or failure to act which presents an imminent risk of serious harm.”

This definition of child abuse and neglect refers specifically to parents and other caregivers. A “child” under this definition generally means a person who is younger than age 18 or who is not an emancipated minor.

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Check your own state statutes for definitions that have been created for child neglect or visit Child Welfare Information Gateway’s State Statutes Search page

The Children’s Trust Fund Alliance (Alliance), which works to prevent child maltreatment, has developed a practical, fact-based definition of neglect that is considered useful to practitioners and advocates:

“Child Neglect is a failure to meet children’s basic needs – whether the failure is the responsibility of parents, communities or society – and this void, places children in harm’s way.”

The value of the Alliance definition is that it points toward our collective responsibility for child neglect, and away from blaming parents for problems not of their making.

Family issues such as poverty, mental health, homelessness, domestic violence and stress can limit parental capacity and contribute significantly to a child being neglected. Neglect often occurs without intent to harm.

Neglect can be characterized as occurring in different, but often overlapping domains. These include:

  • Physical: (e.g., failure to provide necessary food or shelter, or lack of appropriate supervision)
  • Medical: (e.g., failure to provide necessary medical or mental health treatment)
  • Educational: (e.g., failure to educate a child or attend to special education needs)
  • Emotional: (e.g., inattention to a child’s emotional needs, failure to provide psychological care, or permitting the child to use alcohol or other drugs)

While this list may suggest that neglect is easily observable, this is not necessarily true. In reality, neglect can be hard to identify.

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For more information on defining and identifying neglect, see Child Welfare Information Gateway’s, Child Neglect: A Guide for Prevention, Assessment and Intervention.

1 Summary p. x, Child Maltreatment 2019, Children’s Bureau, Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

As a CBCAP state lead agency, it is your responsibility to support programs and activities for the prevention of child abuse and neglect. Given the limited funding available, it is critical to assess, identify and inventory the current unmet needs of the state. By focusing on these risk factors, it will provide a way to prioritize your efforts to address neglect.

There are many factors that increase the risk for child neglect. These include:

  • Poverty/Low Socio-Economic Status/Insufficient Resources – While being poor does not by itself predict neglect, research has shown certain types of socio-economic disadvantage to be associated with it. These include families experiencing multiple periods of homelessness, welfare dependency, and limited incomes, especially when these realities combine with low levels of parental education, the absence of supportive parenting partners, and a parent’s challenges with self-regulation (sometimes brought on by the overwhelming stress of poverty itself).It’s important to note that most people in poverty do NOT maltreat their children. In 2012, approximately 22 percent of children in the U.S. lived in poverty—yet less than one percent (9.2 of every 1,000 children) were involved with child protective services (CPS). (Source: U.S. Census Bureau 2013 and NCANDS 2012)

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For more information on understanding the causes and consequences of U.S. poverty and inequality. Visit the Institute for Research on Poverty.

  • Substance Use Disorders – Data show that children whose parents misuse drugs or alcohol are four times more likely to be neglected compared to families without parental substance use or misuse.
  • Mental Health Disorders – Serious parental mental health disorders can be associated with child neglect, especially when they are unaddressed or untreated. In particular, maternal depression, including post-partum depression, can impact the mother’s capacity to meet her child’s needs, putting the child at increased risk, with the youngest children most at risk.

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For more information on resources and collaborating with substance abuse, mental health and domestic violence partners, see the FRIENDS brief, The Power of Collaboration.

  • Domestic Violence (also known as Intimate Partner Violence) – While there are limits to the data, the evidence confirms that domestic violence is associated with neglect. The risk of neglect is increased when a parent/caregiver’s capacities are compromised due to the ongoing abuse they experience and efforts of the batterer/abuser to control the victim. In addition to physical violence, victims of domestic violence experience other forms of abuse, such as emotional, mental, financial and other abuse that compromise their ability to provide for their children’s needs, putting them at increased risk of being neglected. The demands of parenting can be overwhelming to an abused parent suffering from trauma, damaged self-confidence, and other emotional effects of experiencing interpersonal violence. Violence in the home can have traumatic effects on children.
  • Other risk factors significantly associated with child neglect include the parent’s history of trauma and/or abuse, social isolation and devaluing/minimizing the challenges associated with raising children. Parental incarceration is also considered a risk for neglect. Kristin Turney, in her article, Parental Incarceration and Childhood Health, discusses the impact of parental incarceration and how it separates parents from households, increases economic insecurity, strains parental relationships, impedes parental health and increases parental neglect, all of which may increase health problems in children. Some of the common factors or characteristics in families where neglect is present are:
    • a chaotic, unpredictable, and disorganized family life
    • low social cohesion and fewer positive interactions
    • fewer actual or perceived social supports and social isolation
    • long-standing isolation
    • lack of life skill
    • limited nurturing capacity
    • perceived powerlessness, and
    • exposure to violence and crime.

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For a more comprehensive discussion of these risk factors, including research references, see The Children’s Trust Fund Alliance fact sheet “Child Neglect: The Basics and Beyond (Longer Detailed Version).

Occasional or situational neglect of children needs to be distinguished from neglect that is severe and ongoing, or ‘chronic.’

In a bulletin for professionals on Chronic Child Neglect, the Child Welfare Information Gateway characterizes chronic neglect as occurring when one or more needs basic to a child’s healthy development are not being met by a parent or caregiver on a recurring or enduring basis.

Chronic neglect can also be understood as the experience of growing up in chronic adversity – living in an environment laden with traumatic events that lacks access to resources, including adequate adult supervision and support.

Long-standing and severe neglect can have serious, long-term consequences for children and impact the development of important self-regulation skills in children. The Center on the Developing Child at Harvard notes chronic neglect as being a major contributor to toxic stress.

“Severe neglect appears to be at least as great a threat to health and development as physical abuse—possibly even greater.”

– Harvard University Center on the Developing Child

Research shows that this kind of prolonged activation of the body’s stress response systems can disrupt the development of brain architecture and other organ systems. These disruptions precipitated by chronic neglect (and/or other sources of toxic stress) can produce damaging effects on learning, behavior, and health across the lifespan.

 

Living with the toxic stress produced by chronic neglect or adversity links to trauma symptoms that can impact early brain development and later cognitive development and emotional regulation. Long term impacts can include increased risk for stress-related disease and cognitive impairment well into adulthood. For more information in this area, click here.

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See the Child Welfare Information Gateway’s “Understanding the Effects of Maltreatment on Brain Development” for a full discussion of this important topic.

Two other developing bodies of knowledge are important to understanding chronic neglect:

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Because trauma is so frequently a product of the experience of living with chronic neglect/adversity and other forms of abuse and neglect, it is important that CBCAP grantees maintain a trauma-informed perspective on their work.

Early child abuse and neglect can result in lifelong cognitive, behavioral, and mental health problems. Traumatized children and youth may need help overcoming learning difficulties and social-emotional deficits. Find out how to help these vulnerable children and youth with Child Welfare Information Gateway’s Supporting Brain Development in Traumatized Children and Youth.

The National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) provides a wealth of resources on trauma, from the basics (e.g., “What it is” and “Why it matters”) to highly specialized topics such as addressing the needs of those who have experienced terrorism or war.

NCTSN also hosts a registry, Empirically Supportive Treatments and Promising Practices, that details programs and interventions scientifically endorsed for dealing with trauma. This registry includes interventions specific to the prevention and treatment of neglect. Among these are:

  • Trauma Adapted Family Connections (TA-FC), a neglect prevention intervention for children and youth from 0-18. TA-FC puts significant attention on the daily stressors and crises related to the environmental contexts as well as to family histories that include complex developmental trauma.
  • Attachment and Bio-behavioral Catch-up (ABC) ABC is an early intervention program aimed at the needs of neglected children aged birth through 24 months from low-income families.

In addition, when working with American Indian or Alaskan Native populations it’s important to consider the unique circumstances in working with this population. FRIENDS has resources related to Working with American Indian & Alaska Native Communities.

Preventing Neglect

CBCAP state lead agency efforts to address child neglect should be approached using the basic promotive and preventive approach that informs its other efforts.

This means thinking about these foundational elements and frameworks of effective prevention. In this section, learn more about:

Effective Neglect Prevention Programs

CBCAB state lead agencies can play a leading role in tackling the prevalence of child neglect. The needs assessment process required as part of the CBCAP program is a good place to start when making well-informed strategic decisions. Given the long-standing reality of the far greater incidence of neglect versus abuse, a needs assessment that considers the factors that contribute to neglect should encourage state lead agencies to consider adopting a neglect-prevention focus in their efforts.

 

One primary way state lead agencies can advance neglect prevention is by funding and supporting community-based neglect prevention programs.

 

The broad strategies indicated by research as effective against neglect – e.g. home visiting, attachment-based interventions, early childhood programs – serve to point state lead agencies in the right direction, but much more information is needed to determine the right programmatic choice.

FRIENDS, offers a tool to assist in the choice of effective neglect prevention programs. In this section of the toolkit, learn about using the FRIENDS Crosswalk of Evidence-based Programs to identify effective programs. Also, refer to the Effective Strategies tab under Preventing Neglect for more information on the types of programming that might address neglect.

Using the FRIENDS Crosswalk of Evidence-Based Programs

Some of the evidence-based and evidence-informed programs addressing child neglect can be found in the FRIENDS Crosswalk of Evidence-Based Programs which includes rankings from seven different registries of evidence-based and evidence-informed programs.

Only a very limited number of prevention programs targeting child neglect have been shown by research to be effective. A few programs in the FRIENDS Crosswalk of Evidence-Based Programs are identified as reducing the risk of child neglect. These include: SafeCare,® Family Connections, the Step-By-Step Parenting Program, and Parents Anonymous®.

One community-wide initiative with evidence of effectiveness is Strong Communities for Children.

The FRIENDS Crosswalk of Evidence-Based Programs is an easily utilized tool designed to assist SLAs and their grantees in making strategic choices that best fit the conditions illuminated by their needs assessments. When using the tool, SLAs may want to consider how combining evidence-based and evidence-informed programs may leverage even greater impact, as illustrated by the following example from South Carolina.

Example: A Multi-Program Strategy

South Carolina’s efforts represent an example of how CBCAP state lead agencies are working towards creating a continuum of strategies to prevent neglect.

Through CBCAP funding, the South Carolina SLA is building a network of Family Resource Centers (FRCs) to provide concrete supports for families to prevent neglect.  Additionally, through private foundation, state, and federal funding, the South Carolina SLA supports an array of evidence-based parenting and home visiting programs as a part of their neglect prevention efforts.  Together these efforts provide a continuum of multi-generational support to meet the needs of families. 

Through private foundation funding, the South Carolina SLA is working toward full implementation of the well-supported Triple P (Positive Parenting Program) in three South Carolina counties. Triple P is a system of evidence-based education and support for parents and caregivers of children and adolescents. The Triple P system uses a flexible multi-level framework that tailors information, advice, and professional support to the needs, culture, and community challenges of individual families. Triple P includes a strong focus on addressing participants’ unmet needs for concrete support, a key risk factor for neglect. ConnecticutLouisiana, and Nevada are other states that have invested CBCAP funding in Triple P.

South Carolina sees its support of the Strengthening Families Program (SFP), a universal, primary prevention family skills training program, as another part of its neglect prevention efforts. SFP, considered well-supported by research evidence, has been found to significantly improve parenting skills and family relationships while reducing problem behaviors and other negative child outcomes. The South Carolina SLA partners with non-profits across the state to offer the family skills training program, which is delivered in 14 two-and-a-half-hour sessions. The South Carolina CBCAP state lead agency provides coaching to ensure that SFP is being delivered by its nonprofit partners with fidelity to the proven model.

South Carolina sees these efforts as complementary to the neglect prevention effects of its investment in evidence-based and -informed home visiting programs, which include family health and economic self-sufficiency outcomes.

Early childhood home visiting programs serve families during the first years of a child’s life, often beginning prenatally. Multiple models focus on improving an array of outcomes, which include maternal and child health, developmental screening and surveillance, school readiness, prevention of child abuse, neglect, and injury, and connection to concrete supports and coordination with additional resources. Families are served for a period of a few years, meeting with a support professional in their home at a frequency depending on their needs and the model utilized. The South Carolina SLA partners with 16 implementing agencies across the state to deliver direct services, as well as coordinates efforts with stakeholders at the state level to improve outcomes across different funding sources and program models.

Policies, Public Systems & Partnerships

In considering their role as a state leader in neglect prevention, CBCAP state lead agencies may choose to go beyond programs. As indicated by the research about ‘what works’ to prevent neglect, strategies that seek change at the community and societal levels of the social ecology may work well in strengthening families and preventing child neglect. Two such identified strategies include initiatives that provide economic support interventions and broad-based community initiatives. Certain public policy initiatives also offer fertile ground for state lead agencies to exercise their focus and impact on neglect prevention.

In this section, learn about:

Understanding the prevalence and negative impact of neglect on children, CBCAP state lead agencies have launched new initiatives aimed at neglect prevention that build on other public systems.

CBCAP programs in these states provide examples of promising multi-system initiatives:

Public Awareness & Engagement

Addressing neglect is challenging. It requires changes at the community and societal levels. It is even more difficult to bring attention to, since problems related to neglect are often seen as too difficult to solve, such as poverty, lack of quality childcare, or educational opportunities as well as, definitions are unclear.

Public perception and thinking about the causes of neglect and how to address it are limited. While tragic stories of physical or sexual abuse often receive publicity, neglect is often underpublicized.

 

The Frameworks Institute has done some work in this area related to early childhood and adversity. They have conducted research on framing strategies in hopes of engaging the public. For more information click here.

In addition, Frameworks Institute specifically addresses child neglect in two publications.

 

Engaging the community is one key strategy in preventing child neglect. It is not an easy task, but the need to educate and empower everyone from parents to lawmakers and doctors on the importance of recognizing signs of neglect and understanding the needs of families is critical. Communities need to come together to support one another.

Prevent Child Abuse Iowa’s Connections Matters is an initiative designed to engage community members in building caring connections to improve well-being.

Community engagement is defined as individuals that come together that have a common set of goals, values, and work together to achieve those common goals.

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The Community Tool Box (CTB) from the University of Kansas is developed and managed by the KU Center for Community Health and Development. The CTB addresses informal relationships in collaboration by engaging the community by first taking the time to understand the community through public forums, focus groups, needs assessment, and interviews, engaging others by connecting with other groups, enlisting respected community members, and creating activities, engaging volunteers and partners in strategic planning, engaging opponents and allies to find common ground and build upon strengths and engaging stakeholders in program evaluation. The Community Toolbox can be found here.

To prevent and tackle neglect, we need to support and nurture relationships. The most important relationship is between the child and their parents. Other relationships like those between practitioners and parents, and between local services, are also key. To find out more about building relationships, visit the FRIENDS Collaboration Toolkit section on Informal Relationships.

 

A Parent Perspective:

Download Beth’s Story to hear about one parent’s perspective of the importance of relationships in preventing neglect.

What can we do?

  • Understand children’s needs (e.g. increase knowledge of child development and positive parenting skills)
  • Recognize the signs of neglect and why it happens (e.g. know the signs of neglect and detect it early)
  • Know how to help (e.g. promote the understanding of healthy child development and positive parenting skills and the promotion of help-seeking behavior for parenting difficulties)
  • Feel supported (e.g. promote and foster a community of support for parents)

YOU Can Help!

The following resources were developed by the FRIENDS National Center in collaboration with The Children’s Trust Fund Alliance and the CBCAP Neglect Community of Practice.

General Public – YOU Can Help Prevent Child Neglect in Your Community – This handout was designed to be used with the General Public to provide information on ways families can prevent child neglect. It can be customized for your own organization.

Organizations/Agencies – Together We Can Do More – YOUR ORGANIZATION Can Help Prevent Child Neglect in Your Community addresses: – Ways Prevention Programs Can Provide Support – Developing Collaborative Relationships to Strengthen Communities – Addressing Policy and Public Awareness

 

Community Conversation Guide – Preventing Child Neglect: A Conversation Guide for Community Stakeholders is designed to help community stakeholders (service providers, legislators, parents, educators, clergy, housing coordinators, and others in contact with families) have meaningful conversations about preventing child neglect.

Additional Resources

The Children’s Trust Fund Alliance has developed a series of new learning sequences to raise public awareness and understanding of child maltreatment, its causes, protective factors that help shield children and families, and manageable steps that each of us can take to help reduce the likelihood of child neglect. To learn more, click here.

The Capacity Building Center for the States created the document Building and Sustaining Collaborative Community Relationships that provides information on defining collaborative relationships, steps for collaboration, and guidance for assessing and evaluating collaborations.

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