Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care

Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Child Abuse Prevention. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Child Abuse Prevention. Show all posts

Friday, July 25, 2014

A new tactic to halt child abuse in Maryland

Focus now on helping low-risk families instead of punishing

By Yvonne Wenger
The Baltimore Sun
Originally posted July 5, 2014

Baltimore is changing the way it handles cases of alleged child abuse and neglect — part of a broad social-services strategy that has been touted by Maryland officials but abandoned in some other states.

The new approach, which is designed to lessen the adversarial relationship between families and caseworkers, puts cases on different tracks depending on whether they are deemed high or low risk. The tiered response, used in 23 states, is regarded as a best practice by many child advocates.

The entire story is here.

Monday, October 8, 2012

In Plain View: How child molesters get away with it.

By Malcolm Gladwell
The New Yorker
Originally published September 24, 2012

Here are some excerpts:

The pedophile is often imagined as the dishevelled old man baldly offering candy to preschoolers. But the truth is that most of the time we have no clue what we are dealing with. A fellow-teacher at Mr. Clay’s school, whose son was one of those who complained of being fondled, went directly to Clay after she heard the allegations. “I didn’t do anything to those little boys,” Clay responded. “I’m innocent. . . . Would you and your husband stand beside me if it goes to court?” Of course, they said. People didn’t believe that Clay was a pedophile because people liked Clay—without realizing that Clay was in the business of being likable.

Did anyone at Penn State understand what they were dealing with, either? Here was a man who built a sophisticated, multimillion-dollar, fully integrated grooming operation, outsourcing to child-care professionals the task of locating vulnerable children—all the while playing the role of lovable goofball. “If Sandusky did not have such a human side,” Sports Illustrateds Jack McCallum wrote, in 1999, “there would be a temptation around Happy Valley to canonize him.” A week later, Bill Lyon, of the Philadelphia Inquirer, paid tribute to Sandusky’s selflessness. “In more than one motel hallway, whenever you encountered him and offered what sounded like even the vaguest sort of compliment, he would blush and an engaging, lopsided grin of modesty would wrap its way around his face,” Lyon wrote. “He isn’t in this business for recognition. His defense plays out in front of millions. But when he opens the door and invites in another stray, there is no audience. The ennobling measure of the man is that he has chosen the work that is done without public notice.”

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This is standard child-molester tradecraft. The successful pedophile does not select his targets arbitrarily. He culls them from a larger pool, testing and probing until he finds the most vulnerable. Clay, for example, first put himself in a place with easy access to children—an elementary school. Then he worked his way through his class. He began by simply asking boys if they wanted to stay after school. “Those who could not do so without parental permission were screened out,” van Dam writes. Children with vigilant parents are too risky. Those who remained were then caressed on the back, first over the shirt and then, if there was no objection from the child, under the shirt. “The child’s response was evaluated by waiting to see what was reported to the parents,” she goes on. “Parents inquiring about this behavior were told by Mr. Clay that he had simply been checking their child for signs of chicken pox. Those children were not targeted further.” The rest were “selected for more contact,” gradually moving below the belt and then to the genitals.

The child molester’s key strategy is one of escalation, desensitizing the target with an ever-expanding touch. In interviews and autobiographies, pedophiles describe their escalation techniques like fly fishermen comparing lures.

The entire story is here.

Thanks to Rick Small for this story.

Sunday, August 5, 2012

Official Rescinds Punishment of Psychologist on Reservation

By Timothy Williams
The New York Times
Originally published August 2, 2012

A government psychologist who was officially reprimanded for alerting his superiors to widespread child abuse on a North Dakota Indian reservation has had his punishment rescinded, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Thursday.

The psychologist, Michael R. Tilus, director of behavioral health at the Spirit Lake Health Center on the Spirit Lake Reservation, said he had been acting as a whistle-blower when he e-mailed letters to senior federal health officials, law enforcement agents and North Dakota’s United States senators about what he described as an “epidemic” of child abuse at Spirit Lake and the lack of effort by the tribe’s leaders to address the problem.

The entire article is here.

The original story on this blog about Michael R. Tilus is here.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Psychologist Who Wrote of Abuse Is Punished

By Timothy Williams
The New York Times
Originally published July 30, 2012

A federal health services psychologist who told superiors that an American Indian tribe was ignoring widespread child abuse on a North Dakota reservation has been reprimanded and reassigned, according to federal officials and documents.

The psychologist, Michael R. Tilus, director of behavioral health at the Spirit Lake Health Center on the Spirit Lake Indian reservation, describes himself as a whistle-blower. He wrote in an e-mail to state and federal health officials this spring about an “epidemic” of child abuse on Spirit Lake, which is in a remote area of northeastern North Dakota.

Among the recipients were officials with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Indian Health Service, which oversee most health care on Spirit Lake.  

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Dr. Tilus wrote that instead of being punished, he deserved whistle-blower protection under the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act of 2012, which was signed into law by President Obama this month. That law extends military whistle-blower safeguards to federal Public Health Service officers.

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Culture of Denial and Child Sex Abuse

Voices In The Family - WHYY Radio
Originally posted 11/14/11

Alleged incidents of child sexual abuse brought to light at Penn State are disturbing. University stakeholders have been ousted. The campus remains a live wire of anger and confusion. As our hearts go out to children and families who have come forward with their stories, we find ourselves wondering, why did so many people fail to report what they saw or heard about?

Dan Gottlieb, PhD
Dan Gottlieb Ph.D, host of Voices in the Family, is a family therapist in private practice. He is a nationally recognized lecturer in the field of mental health, and a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Dan Gottlieb asks: why the cultural hesitation and denial in sexual abuse cases, in general, when the well-being of children is at stake? We'll take a look at the psychology of institutional betrayal as well as prevention of abuse with Jennifer J. Freyd, Michael Stinson, Ken Singer, and Kelly Moore.

The entire podcast can be found here.