Financial Crisis Could be a Child Abuse Risk Factor
Well, with all the talk of money and hard times to come, I never thought about what it would mean beyond the price of a tank of gas or whether or not my husband would still be employed. I should have known that the rammifications of a financial ciriss went far beyond the tangible.
While I was working at a local children's home several years ago (Wow, it was like 1996. Time flies.) we were told that the number of children residing in the facility boomed two times a year. Can you guess which?
Super Bowl Sunday and mid-April around tax day. Amazing huh? Super Bowl Sunday, probably due to the excess of alcohol and tax day due to the financial stress of the situation.
Now that we are heading into financially insecure times, the threat of more children being abused may become a reality. Childhelp, a national non-profit dedicated to the prevention and treatment of child abuse and neglect, wants us all to be aware of the current threat to our children.
Childhelp just issued a press release that reported that their clinicians and counselors working their advocacy centers and hotlines, available 24 hours a day at 1-800-4-A-CHILD), are already noticing a connection between the current financial crisis and child abuse and neglect.
A 2007 study estimated that the annual financial cost to society due to child abuse and neglect in the U.S. is over 100 billion dollars.
The cost of the abuse and neglect beyond financial is far worse, emotionally crippled adults that are not successful and productive parts of a community.
Remember the concern for child abuse and neglect following Hurricane Katrina?
The same is true for our current financial crisis, our nations children could be at risk for child abuse. Be aware and ready to take steps to avoid child abuse and neglect during times of stress.
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I appreciate your efforts. I am linking to your site. If you do not want this please let me know. My site focuses on a type of child abuse that has reached epidemic poportions but is rarely discussed or publicized. It is child support and financial abuse. Not the angry narcissistic Father type. There are plenty of sites out there that are predominantly male oriented complaining about child support abuse. The real problem is the “lack of child support”. Support that is not being paid, collected, and even ordered properly by the courts. If you look at the “calculators” for child support they allow the courts discretion for financial deviations if the parent can afford it and if it is in the best interest of the child. How many “upward deviations” are documented in child support cases. The courts generally rule in the favor of the party with the best lawyer. That is generally not the parent with primary custody simply due to the fact of the poverty induced on that parent by the miserly amount of support that is awarded by the state. Quite possibly the amounts are set so low because it is hard to collect any amount of support these days and that job has fallen to the state as well. The states are creating a self induced demographic of poverty, primary parents and their children. Is there any one out there studying the correlation between child support and poverty? The most vulnerable members of our society are being enslaved to a childhood of poverty and all of the disadvantages associated with it, one being at higher risk for abuse. The primary parent has to work harder to financially support the children placing them at further risk for neglect. This epidemic is a huge pink elephant in the living room of our society. No one is talking abut “The Emperor’s New Clothes”. Congratulations and kudos to the states and their increased collections of child support. Now maybey they can actually look at the true cost of raising a child properly. I would like to see the powers that be raise a child for one year on what the USDA and median income levels are for their state. Child support and child abuse. It is a true disadvantage in every sense of the word to be poor in our society and we are creating a generation of people living this nightmare as we speak.
Jennifer Bradford
http://www.jennifercooper.net/calculator