Citation

Jellinek MS, Murphy JM, Poitrast FG, Quinn D, Bishop SJ, Goshko M. Child Abuse Negl. 1992; 16(2): 179-185.

Affiliation

Child Psychiatry Service, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston 02114.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1992, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

1559167

Abstract

Two hundred and six severely abused and/or neglected children brought before the Boston Juvenile Court on care and protection petitions were followed prospectively for 4 years. Two thirds of all parents were found to be poor, 84% had one or more psychiatric disorders, and 81% had been known to the Department of Social Services prior to their court appearance. The average age of children at the start of the court process was 4.2 years, and the average length of temporary foster care was 2.3 years. Judges' decisions to return children to parental custody or to order permanent removal were most strongly predicted by parental compliance with court-order services. Of the 63 cases dismissed from court and thus returned to biological parents, 18 (29%) had substantiated reports of new mistreatment over an approximately 3-year follow-up period. We concluded that children are often poorly served by the current delays in the social service/legal system, and that further clinical research would provide needed empirical data on how best to protect mistreated children.

Language: en