Child emotional abuse: The role of educational professionals

Abstract

AbstractThe paper examines the roles of schools and educational professionals in relation to children who have been emotionally abused by their parents where emotional abuse is the sole or main form of abuse. Information was gained from two contrasting studies. The first study provides an overview of school-age children in the emotional abuse category of local authority child protection registers in England. This study was based on telephone interviews with key workers in 112 cases from twelve local authorities representative of the different geographical and demographic areas of England. This study provided primarily quantitative data about procedural issues and education-related problems. The second study explores the role of educational professionals on the basis of information from in-depth interviews with 14 people who experienced substantial childhood emotional abuse and now define themselves as survivors of this form of abuse. The results show that schools were clearly involved in identifying and referring emotional abuse cases to social services. Furthermore, psychological maltreatment affects children’s schooling in a variety of ways. Finally, educational professionals, including educational psychologists, played a key role in enhancing the resilience of many of the survivors. In conclusion, they can provide support, role models and, in terms of Carl Rogers’s theories, unconditional positive regard. Generally, educational professionals have an essential role in working with children who have been emotionally abused.