Abstract
How many children are maltreated in the population is a subject of debate in the literature. There is agreement only that the true extent of child maltreatment is unknown. The scope of this problem is estimated from self-report surveys or reports to child welfare services and/or police, but many incidents of abuse or neglect are never admitted or reported (Cicchetti & Carlson, 1989; MacMillan, Jamieson, & Walsh, 2003). Estimates indicate that between half to four fifths of all victims of maltreatment are not known to child protection services (Bolen & Scannapieco, 1999; Sedlak & Broadhurst, 1996). The tip-of-the-iceberg analogy easily comes to mind when one thinks of the scope of child maltreatment (Sedlak & Broadhurst, 1996; Trocmé et al., 2005).
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Fallon, B., Trocmé, N., Fluke, J., MacLaurin, B., Tonmyr, L., Yuan, YY. (2010). Understanding Child Maltreatment Systems: A Foundation for Child Welfare Policy. In: Kamerman, S.B., Phipps, S., Ben-Arieh, A. (eds) From Child Welfare to Child Well-Being. Children’s Well-Being: Indicators and Research, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3377-2_5
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