 |
 CHILD NEGLECT |
 |
 | |
 | ||||
|
Child Neglect is characterized by failure to provide for the child's basic needs. Neglect can be physical, educational, or emotional. Physical neglect includes refusal of, or delay in, seeking health care; abandonment; expulsion from the home or refusal to allow a runaway to return home; and inadequate supervision. Educational neglect includes the allowance of chronic truancy, failure to enroll a child of mandatory school age in school, and failure to attend to a special educational need. Emotional neglect includes such actions as marked inattention to the child's needs for affection; refusal of or failure to provide needed psychological care; spouse abuse in the child's presence; and permission of drug or alcohol use by the child. The assessment of child neglect requires consideration of cultural values and standards of care as well as recognition that the failure to provide the necessities of life may be related to poverty. Imminent Risk is the fifth category of child abuse recognized in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is defined as, “Any recent act, failure to act or series of such acts or failures to act by a parent or caretaker which creates an imminent risk of serious physical injury to or sexual abuse or sexual exploitation of a child.” A recent act is an act within the last two years. Creating an imminent risk means that one can reasonably assume that abuse would have occurred had in not been for happenstance, acts of the child, or acts of a third party that prevented it from happening. If a parent fires a gun at a child, the child ducks, and the bullet goes into the wall behind the child, this act by the parent is considered to have placed the child at imminent risk of serious physical injury. If a parent hires a known sex offender as a babysitter, this act is considered to have placed the child at imminent risk of sexual abuse. Although any of the forms of child maltreatment may be found separately, they often occur in combination. Emotional abuse is almost always present when other forms are identified.
|
|
||
 | ||||
