Pergamon Child Abuse & Neglect, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 241-244, 1997

Copyright © 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in the USA, All rights reserved

0145-2134/97 $17.00 + .00

BOOK REVIEWS

Developing Personal Safety Skills in Children with Disabilities. Freda Briggs. Jessica Kingsley, publisher. 224 pages. $18.95.

This is an important book, For too long it was perceived that disabled children would not be targeted for abuse. As a result there are almost no books addressing these issues. It is as if disabled children are not part of the child protection agenda; they are the invisible ones. Rarely does one see research or studies on this subject published in the professional child abuse journals. Professor Freda Briggs of the University of South Australia, one of the few professionals engaged in specific work with disabled children, dispels the myths and makes them visible at last.

Part one of the book establishes the context of these children's lives and an overview of alarming statistics showing very much greater abuse when compared to nondisabled children. This is immensely valuable, though the reality is stark and shocking. She looks at children's needs for personal safety skills and the additional requirements of disabled children. She also highlights the role of parents, even fathers, in the program, offering curriculum suggestions and advice on responding to actual or suspected sexual abuse.

Part two is divided into seven modules and looks at self-esteem, assertiveness skills, coping with hazards, my body, private body parts, feelings and touch.

Briggs begins her discussion by noting that universally all safety and prevention programs were designed for nondisabled children and consequently are universally inaccessible to a large range of disabled children.

She argues for teaching safety skills because of the vulnerability of children, but does not offer a political analysis as to why this is so. This is crucially important for disabled children who are not only facing a "right to life" issue, but also abuse. It is not surprising that with governments pressing for both termination of pregnancies if the fetus is impaired and a proliferation of television programs concerning euthanasia for disabled children, that they are secondary in the child protection arena. How do we address safety issues if there is a clamor for death!?

There are parts of the book that are unhelpful, for example, referring to boys who have been abused by men as suffering "homosexual" abuse. This is both offensive to the gay community and confusing for boy victims as sexual abuse by men has little to do with homosexuality. I am also worried by the concept of "responsibility," discussed in a sample letter to parents: "We are trying to teach children that they have a responsibility to keep their bodies safe and well." This places too much responsibility on children who may fear punishment if they "failed" to safeguard their bodies.

Briggs highlights an important issue in both interpreting for disabled children who have augmentative communication systems and therapeutic work. Teachers are often relied upon to do both. She argues that this is so due to the inability of the specialists to do therapeutic work with disabled children. This must be regarded as bad practice as it does not guard the child's confidentiality and blurs roles, which is unhelpful to a child whose boundaries have already been confused. It is often a panic reaction by services who feel ill equipped to deal with the abuse of disabled children.

There are worksheets for children to fill out about themselves, with ideas for "a book about me." I am saddened to see that the guidance here omits any mention of disability or a disabled identity. Disabled children must know that it's OK to be disabled (even if the whole world is denying it). We know perpetrators target children who do not feel good about themselves. In the autobiography section Briggs omits an opportunity to promote a positive disabled identity although elsewhere she does promote "difference" as a positive identity (not quite the same!). Naked body pictures are used of nondisabled children, again, showing the body as nondisabled is a message to disabled children which is not helpful.

Will disabled children think, "the shape of my body is so awful I can't be in a book?" Nevertheless

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242 Book Reviews

Briggs includes the excellent concept that wheelchairs, crutches, frames, and sticks are part of the disabled child's image (part, therefore of their body) and must be seen as such. This is important, as I have known these things withdrawn as punishments, and this practice should be perceived as assault.

The module on private body parts includes the mouth as a private part. I find this extremely useful as it will address the issue of "oral" abuse. This is an important part of a disabled child's body, particularly if they are fed by another or have tube feeding. It must therefore be part of any program dealing with touch. I would have valued more on the very sensitive issues of personal intimate care. Disabled children often need extensive touch as part of medical/hygienic care (rectal Valium, colosto- mies, body braces, physiotherapy, injections, callipers, toiletting, etc.). Staff should have very strict guidelines on such procedures and disabled children must be part of choice/decision making when procedures impact intimately on them. It should never seem "routine."

This book is valuable for all teachers, care staff, and child protection practitioners. It should be available within all training on child protection. It is almost shameful the neglect disabled children have experienced by child protection specialists. If there are parts of this book that needs further work at least it cannot be said of Freda Briggs that she ignored disabled children.

Disability & Child Protection Training and Consultancy 5 Albion Works Sigdon Road London E8 lAP, UK

MARGARET KENNEDY

PII S0145-2134(96)00149-4

Parental Perspectives in Cases of Suspected Child Abuse. Hendy Cleaver and Pam Freeman. HMSO, London, 1995. 178 pages.

It was an unusual experience to review a new book when a number of responses have already appeared in the public domain. This arose through the political aspect of this work, being part of a research series sponsored by the Department of Health in the wake of the 1988 Cleveland Inquiry into overzealous professional interventions following suspicions of child sexual abuse. Many of the projects were conducted by members of the University of Bristol's Dartington Social Research Unit and are either currently available in similar reports to this one, or else are in press. The Department of Health has also published a summary of the main findings from the 20 studies (Child Protection; Messages from Research, London, HMSO, 1995) and concluded from them that, since too much social work activity appears to be devoted to investigation and too little to family support, a shift in policy is required. Recently, Nigel Parton has argued that the research program has not properly represented the complexities of child protection work ( "Child protection, family support and social work," Child and Family Social Work, 1996, 1, 3-11 ).

This project was concerned with the developing impact on parents of suspicion and investigation and the meaning they attribute to such scrutiny. Five hundred and eighty three children's cases were followed up for 2 years after the initial investigation, while a representative sample of 61 children's cases in 30 families was focused on in a more intensive study. As a result, a useful picture emerges of the spectrum of child abuse investigations undertaken by social workers and how many cases represented significant risk. Of the 583 children's cases referred, 84% were deemed to warrant investigation, but the names of only 29% were eventually placed on Child Protection Registers (implying that a protection plan was necessary). Fewer than 10 cases were considered dangerous. Over the follow-up period, 16 of the 61 children were reliably believed to have experienced re-abuse of some degree.

The rest, however, was disappointing and did not justify the policy changes it heralded. The researchers propose that "operational perspectives" are a collection of socially oriented perceptions that people use to make sense of their lives, including helping them cope with abuse accusations. They are influenced by past experience, current interaction, motivation, power relationships, context, and so on. The main hypothesis was that the closer the operational perspectives between parents and professionals, the more satisfactory the outcome is experienced to be, but neither the terms of reference nor outcome criteria were defined more closely. Follow-up was by observation (of case