PILOT PROJECT FOR THE CREATION OF A NATION-WIDE SYSTEM TO MONITOR NEGLECTED, ILL-TREATED AND SEXUALLY ABUSED CHILDREN, REPORTED TO AND TAKEN INTO CARE BY ITALIAN CHILD PROTECTION SERVICES Ministry of Welfare National Childhood and Adolescence Documentation and Analysis Centre – Istituto degli Innocenti

Framework 2002–2004 Italian National Action Plan for Childhood sets as a priority identifying a constant, homogeneous registration system of the incidence (number of cases per year) of child abuse in all its forms, and providing an adequate description of sub-categories and of its characterizing features.

The project is part of the duties attributed to the National Centre in accordance with Law 451/97 under which the National Centre was established Pilot project’s aims: 1.experimenting COMMON models in examining and reporting suspected or confirmed cases of ill-treatment and sexual abuse of children; 2. collecting comparative data.

Projecting process – main steps 1. A national group of experts coordinated by National Centre was set up 2. Review of the main experiences of data colleting and surveys conducted in Italy after the approval of the new law on child sexual abuse (1996) 3. Analysis of the existing regional guidelines for reporting and taking care of child suspected to be victim of child abuse

4. Drafting of a form to register demographic, social and clinical information on the child and his/her family, and to document the interventions by the territorial service responsible for the minor and by all other agencies acting in the protection process 5. Presentation of the project and a first version of recording’s tools (registration form and software) to representatives of regions and territorial services 6. Identification of three regions (Friulia Veenzia Giulia in the North, Lazio in the Centre and Calabria in the South of Italy) for a pilot implementation of the project 7. Selection of a sample of services in the three regions partecipating to the pilot study

Training with the professionals working in the territorial services selected The main actors of the survey are professionals working in child protection’s field in health or social local services

The application of the common form is planned for two periods: On the cases reported in October, November and December 2004 On the new cases which will be reported during the year 2005.

Framework definition “child abuse or maltreatment constitutes all forms of physical and/or emotional ill-treatment, sexual abuse, neglect or negligent treatment or commercial or other exploitation, resulting in actual or potential harm to the child’s health, survival, development or dignity in the context of a relationship of responsibility, trust or power” WHO’s “Consultation on Child Abuse Prevention”

Typologies of child abuse considered in the pilot study sexual abuse physical ill-treatment psychological ill-treatment neglect witnessing violence Each typologies is identified by a set of specific attitudes and behaviours

The Child form Section A: the child, personal information of an anonymous nature; Section B: the reasons for the report of child to the service (including information on possible previous referral of child or his/her family to the service completing the form or other); Section C: description of the family context (its structure, personal and social data on the parents other children, identification of specific risk factors); Section D:resources of protection (material but also qualitative) at an individual (parents and child) and family/social level – ecological approach to the interpretation of the causes and dynamics of child abuse

Section E : the interventions performed by the service filling the form, or others, in favour of the child, the family unit Section F: the characterizing features of the forms of child abuse reported, for each forms: specific acts, frequency, duration, data on perpetrator, interventions to perpetrator (s) A total of 87 items. The professionals participating to the pilot study will register the information in a friendly software designed by the National Centre

The Form or Child questionnaire: a dynamic tool for register the proccess of taking in care of the child and his/her family DetectionProtectionAssessmentRecovery Child questionnaire/form

Expected results Identify a minimum common set of variables/items as the core of a standard form to be disseminate at national level Contribute to the knowledge on each type of child abuse in terms of characteristics, dynamics and typologies of families interested by the problem Acquire a picture on the interventions adopted to face the problem with the child, the family and perpetrators Collect comparable data thanking to the use of a common set of definitions and a common form for reporting each case