Front Matter for Including Information on Child Abuse and Neglect in the Undergraduate Curriculum

• Letter to Colleagues
• Contributors to This Guide
• Members of the Child Abuse and Neglect Working Group
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Design and Development of this Guide

American Psychological Association
Public Interest Directorate
750 First Street, NE
Washington, DC 20002-4242
(202) 336-5500
TDD: (202) 336-6123

Compiled by:
Jeffrey J. Haugaard, PhD
Department of Human Development and Family Studies
Cornell University

April 1996

Dear Colleague:

This publication is designed to promote education about child abuse and neglect. It provides guidance to faculty members who would like to add information about child abuse and neglect to their current courses or who would like to develop courses focused on child abuse and neglect.

Many of your students will enter professions in which they will have contact with abused and neglected children or with adults who have been abused and neglected as children. Consequently, learning about the causes and consequences of abuse and neglect, about strategies for preventing abuse and neglect, and about therapeutic services for abused and neglected children and adults will be an important component of their education.

Publication of this booklet has been sponsored by the American Psychological Association (APA) Public Interest Directorate, the APA Child Abuse and Neglect Working Group and by the Section on Child Maltreatment (Section I) of the Division of Child, Youth, and Family Services (Division 37). An important mission of both groups is to increase knowledge about child maltreatment within professional groups and in the general public.

Thank you for your interest in including information on child maltreatment in your
courses. Please feel free to share this publication with others. For additional copies of this publication, please contact the Public Interest Directorate, American Psychological Association, 750 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20002-4242.

Sincerely,

Diane J. Willis, PhD
Chair
Child Abuse and Neglect Working Group

Jeffery J. Haugaard, PhD
Member, Child Abuse and Neglect Working Group
President, Section on Child Maltreatment

Contributors to This Guide

Deborah Ascione, MS
Utah State University

Davina M. Brown, PhD
Franklin Pierce College

Susan Esquilin, PhD
Montclair, NJ

Joann Grayson, PhD
James Madison University

Gloria Koepping, PhD
Highline Community College

Bonnie Seegmiller, PhD
Hunter College

David A. Wolfe, PhD
University of Western Ontario

.

Members of the Child Abuse and Neglect Working Group

Diane J. Willis, PhD, Chair
University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center

Judith L. Alpert, PhD
New York University

Judith V. Becker, PhD
University of Arizona

Barbara L. Bonner, PhD
University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center

Stuart N. Hart, PhD
Indiana University - Purdue University at Indianapolis

Jeffrey J. Haugaard, PhD
Cornell University

Gary B. Melton, PhD
University of South Carolina

Carol S. (Sue) White, PhD
MetroHealth Medical Center, Cleveland, OH

Foreword

Education is an essential component of the effort to prevent child abuse and neglect and reduce the consequences to abused and neglected children. This publication provides guidance for professors and lecturers who would like to incorporate information about child abuse and neglect into their teaching.

In the introduction, several reasons about why child abuse and neglect should be included in undergraduate courses are provided. In addition, examples of ways that child abuse and neglect information can be included in undergraduate courses are described. In Section I, the topics that could be incorporated into an undergraduate course on child abuse and neglect are described along with a list of references that provide an overview of each topic. Section II lists a variety of general sources of information on child abuse and neglect.

Education is an essential component of the effort to prevent child abuse and neglect and reduce the consequences to abused and neglected children. Education about child abuse and neglect at the undergraduate level is important for several reasons:

• The prevalence of child abuse and neglect and the significant influence of child abuse and neglect on the physical, emotional, and cognitive development of some children is well documented in the literature. This suggests that courses that focus on normal and atypical development would be incomplete if they did not include some information on child abuse and neglect.

• Some undergraduates will enter professions where they will have contact with children and families that have experienced abuse or neglect. They need to be aware of the prevalence of child abuse and neglect; the range of consequences of child abuse and neglect to children, families, and communities; and the ways in which child abuse and neglect are managed by the child welfare, legal, and mental-health professions.

• Most undergraduates eventually will become parents. Knowledge about child abuse and neglect may influence positively their ability to prevent their children from being abused or neglected and to seek appropriate assistance if abuse or neglect occurs. Furthermore, many of them will have experienced abuse and neglect or will have a friend or partner who has been abused or neglected. Information about abuse and neglect may help them to understand their own development and the development of others more clearly.

Three general ways that educators can incorporate information into undergraduate courses are detailed below.

1. Integrate examples of child abuse and neglect issues into current courses:

   • Examples of the difficulty of defining abuse and neglect could be included

   • in several courses in the segment concerning definition, assessment, or diagnosis.

   • Examples of the development of abusive behavior could be included in theoretical discussions of personality development (e.g., how being a victim of abuse may make a child more aggressive).

   • Examples of the prevalence of abuse and neglect could be included in information about public health problems.

   • Examples of a variety of legal issues in child maltreatment (e.g., children as witnesses, rights of defendants, victims) could be included in law and psychology courses.

   • The ethical and legal impediments to conducting rigorous research on abuse and neglect and ways of dealing with these impediments could be discussed in research methods courses.

2. Include in a variety of undergraduate classes a lecture or two that cover child abuse and neglect issues:
   • Information on the prevalence of child abuse and neglect and of its con-sequences to child, adolescent, and adult development could be included in a wide range of courses that focus on normal and abnormal development.

   • The extent to which the definition and assessment of abuse and neglect is culturally determined could be included in cross-cultural courses.

   • Information about the influence of involvement with the legal system on abused and neglected children could be included in courses on psychology and the law.

   • An evaluation of efforts to prevent child abuse and neglect could be included in courses on community psychology.

   • Research and theory about the development of abusive behavior within families and the influences of abuse on family functioning could be included in courses on the family.

3. Offer courses that encompass all forms of child abuse and neglect or that focus on one type (e.g., sexual abuse or physical abuse).

Design and Development of this Guide

This publication is designed to facilitate the inclusion of child abuse and neglect material in existing classes and the development of courses that focus on child abuse and neglect. It consists of an outline of the topics that could be included in a comprehensive semester-long course on child abuse and neglect and a series of references to the literature and other educational materials for each topic.

Professors and lecturers who would like to incorporate information about child abuse and neglect into current classes can use the guide to locate literature and other materials on the specific topics that they plan to include. Most of the literature references are to research and theoretical reviews. These reviews include references to the primary sources of the research and theory and, thus, provide guidance to those seeking in-depth information.

The American Psychological Association (APA) Working Group on Implications for Education and Training of Child Abuse and Neglect Issues encouraged the development of the guide. Following the decision to create the guide, the APA Child Abuse and Neglect Working Group sought, through requests for course syllabi and reading lists in the APA Monitor and directorate and division newsletters, the expertise of psychologists who were teaching about child abuse and neglect. The syllabi and lists were compiled, along with information provided by the members of the Working Group, into this guide. During its development, the guide was reviewed by experts in child abuse and neglect from across the country to ensure its accuracy and representativeness.

Comments about, or suggestions for additions to, this guide should be addressed to the Division 37 Section on Child Maltreatment, c/o Mary Campbell, Public Interest Directorate, American Psychological Association, 750 First Street, NE, Washington, DC 20002-4242.

Copyright © 1997 by the American Psychological Association. This material may be reproduced without permission, provided acknowledgement is given to the American Psychological Association.