Mecanismul recurenţei cazurilor de maltratare a copilului în sistemul de protecţie socială din România [The Mechanism of Recurrence of Child Maltreatment Incidents in the Romanian Social Protection System]

In recent years, the concept of recurrence of child maltreatment has generated many debates, controversies, and various interdisciplinary approaches. A considerable amount of literature has been published on the causes, incidence, and the consequences of recurrence of child maltreatment. Also, various programmes and strategies to prevent this phenomenon have been developed. In Romania, the current literature available on recurrent incidents of child maltreatment is scarce. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to suggest some explanatory mechanisms of recurrence of child maltreatment (abuse and/or neglect) within the family context. During a first stage of the research, the administrative databases provided by the Iasi County General Directorate for Social Work and Protection of Child Rights was analysed. Through the successive exclusion of addresses and complaints which were not within the scope of this research, 29 families who experienced during the period 2007-2010 repetitive incidents of maltreatment in one child or several children were found out. During the second stage of our research, the information presented in the social files of families allowed for the contextualisation of recurrent incidents, according to the following key elements: a) case characteristics; b) the assessment and the type of decisions which have been adopted; c) the measures which are usually taken in dealing with a child maltreatment case. The following circumstances in which the risk of recurrence of abuse and/or neglect is very high were identified: a) when, at the first complaint, there was insufficient evidence to prove that the incident had taken place; b) when, at the first complaint, it was considered that the incident of abuse and/or neglect had not been serious enough to require measures of social protection; c) when the family had not been carefully assessed and monitored both before and after the reintegration of the child.

Keywords: recurrence, child maltreatment, measures of social protection