The multiple faces of child abuse and neglect: A case for the utility of a public health model within the Trinidadian context

Objectives: Caribbean statistics on child abuse are often misrepresentations of its true pervasiveness, since in many cases it is under-reported and is deeply enmeshed in social, familial and ideological systems that may not... [ view full abstract ]

Objectives: Caribbean statistics on child abuse are often misrepresentations of its true pervasiveness, since in many cases it is under-reported and is deeply enmeshed in social, familial and ideological systems that may not work together to protect children. In addition, funding for basic prevalence and incidence studies often remains elusive. The current study examined the co-occurrence of child abuse and neglect among adolescents in Trinidad and adds significant value to the Caribbean literature on child abuse and neglect, given the conspicuous absence of empirical data and the widespread local knowledge of this problem. The study also explored the utility of the public health model to address this problem. Method: The study adopted a correlational design. As part of a larger study, 226 adolescents aged 12 to 17 years were sampled from residential (N=113) and non-residential (N=113) care. Participants completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ; Bernstein & Fink, 1997) which measured five different types of abuse/neglect (emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, physical neglect and emotional neglect). Results: Preliminary analyses indicated that 83 (73.45%) adolescents in non-residential care and 109 (96.46%) in residential care faced at least one type of abuse or neglect. Pearson’s correlation revealed moderate to strong correlations among the five types of abuse and neglect. Conclusions: The findings suggest that adolescents are likely to face multiple forms of abuse. Attention should be paid to all children, since their experiences of abuse may not only be environment specific and in some cases, protective factors within the family or home may not be present. A public health model is proposed to effectively deal with early detection and prevention strategies and utilizes many existing resources.

Keywords: child abuse, neglect, public health model, adolescents, Trinidad