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It starts at home

Survey, experts say parents the key to preventing abuse

Jim Camden  •  Staff writer
Published April 15, 2008

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Child abuse prevention may be the responsibility of the entire community, but it begins at home.

That seems to be the conclusion of some 800 people surveyed last month in Spokane and Kootenai counties, three-fourths of whom said their community needs to do more to prevent child abuse.

That's in line with other responses to the Our Kids: Our Business survey, in which strong majorities contacted in both counties described child abuse and neglect as serious problems in their communities and said they believed the communities should spend more on programs to prevent it.

"If you think there's a problem, it would sound kind of strange to say, 'I don't think there's anything we can do about it,' " said Del Ali, whose firm Research 2000 conducted the survey for The Spokesman-Review and KHQ, KXLY, and KSPS television stations.

When asked who was most responsible for reducing child abuse and neglect, nearly two out of three respondents said parents, and about one in five said other family members and friends. Only about one in 10 said the primary responsibility is with government, and about one in 20 put the burden on churches or other charitable organizations.

At first glance that might sound like a contradiction, because it seems to put the burden for preventing child abuse and neglect on the people most likely to be doing it. But Lucy Berliner, an expert researcher on child abuse, doesn't see it that way.

"They're giving the exact right, most logical answer," said Berliner, the director of Harborview Center for Sexual Assault and Traumatic Stress. "The care of children first and foremost belongs to parents. It's not someone else's responsibility, it's the family's."

When parents aren't living up to their responsibilities to nurture and protect their children, it is the people close to them who are most responsible for stepping in, Berliner said. It's the grandmother offering to watch the baby while the harried mom gets a break, or an uncle who voices concern that "dad's drinking too much," she said.

High-profile cases of child abuse like Summer Phelps' death last year and Nevaeh Miller's death this year can prompt the public to ask why didn't government do more – or do anything. But those are a small fraction of the child abuse and neglect cases that occur, Berliner said.

Even the cases that are handled by police or child welfare agencies are a minority of the abuse and neglect that happen, she said. But that's the way the system is designed.

"The government can't go around checking up on everyone to see if they are abusing their children," Berliner said.

Mary Ann Murphy, of the Spokane Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect Council, agrees that government's role is down the road, and "reactive." Placing the responsibility for preventing abuse and neglect on parents and the extended family isn't just logical, it's in keeping with what researchers know about victims of abuse and neglect.

That is, the majority of children who are abused and neglected don't abuse or neglect their children when they become parents, Murphy said. At least 70 percent avoid their parents' patterns of abuse and neglect, and decide not to repeat the cycle.

What makes the difference, researchers believe, is "a strong positive relationship with someone else close to them" – a family member, friend, teacher or mentor, she said.

"That can counteract the influence of 'doing unto others what has been done to you,' " Murphy said.

The job of government and social service agencies is to make programs available that can support strong families, offering everything from recreation to substance abuse prevention and recovery to health care, she said.

"Prevention should be more of a grass-roots operation," Murphy said.