Help for Maltreated Children and their Families

Abstract

Parents who maltreat their children have usually been maltreated themselves. Unless more effective intervention can be devised, many of the maltreated children now being seen will, in their turn, become parents with difficulties in nurturing their own children. Are social workers unrealistically optimistic about the effectiveness of their involvement in protecting a child? Based on an extensive experience at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, this article is an attempt to provide some guidelines for social workers and others who are concerned to do more than identify these families, and to indicate some possible directions for the development of imaginative and innovative services in an attempt to prevent child maltreatment proceeding down the generations.