Terra Incognita? Efforts in „charting" the size of child maltreatment in Europe (Symposium): 4) The surveillance of child maltreatment and "children in danger" in France

The lack of robust data on child maltreatment, about its prevalence and characteristics, has long been identified as a problem for policy and practice by many actors of child protection in France. In 2004, an Observatory was... [ view full abstract ]

The lack of robust data on child maltreatment, about its prevalence and characteristics, has long been identified as a problem for policy and practice by many actors of child protection in France. In 2004, an Observatory was created to help improve our quantified understanding of situations of danger, which led to the setting up of an ambitious national data collection system. Child protection in France is organized as a specialized branch of social services (acting in collaboration with many other sectors such as medicine, law enforcement and education). As such, it is fairly decentralized: although the law and its provisions are the same everywhere, each département (local authority) has its own procedures, strategies and customs, which is a significant problem for data collection at a national level. It should also be noted that the operative concept is that of "children in danger", which is broader that "maltreatment" and doesn't necessarily cover all the same situations.
This presentation will detail the overall structure of the data collection system organized by Observatoire national de la protection de l'enfance (ONPE) and give an overview of the progress done so far in this ongoing process.