'Little Steps' in Early Intervention with Sexually Abused Children: A Child-Centric Approach
Year: 2010
Type: dissertation
Abstract: While early intervention and treatment are often advocated for young children who has been sexually abused, little attention has been directed to developing an evidence base for such interventions.Hence, this research series took place over two principal areas of study: (i) the development of targeted interventions for young children who had experienced sexual abuse; and (ii) the co-evolution of a Child-Centric Intervention Research Framework to evaluate their effectiveness.The research series began with a Participatory Action Research (PAR) and mixed method evaluation of a locally available Protective Behaviours program delivered across three groups of children aged four to seven years.Children in the participant sample were considered 'at risk' of, or with substantiated experiences of, interpersonal violence, including sexual abuse.Through iterative monitoring of their progress, contextual, summative and formative outcomes, which were both quantitative and qualitative in nature, were analyzed idiographically (within case) and nomothetically (across cases) to provide an idiothetic analysis of the program's outcomes.This evaluation pointed to limited success of the program and provided impetus to develop a new approach to intervention for young and vulnerable sexually abused children.It also highlighted some of the challenges of evaluating programs for children, exposing the need for an iterative microanalytic approach focused on the child as an entity greater than his or her experience or symptoms, as well as an entity firmly embedded in a wider outcome-influencing system.A Developmental Intervention Research approach (DIR) was introduced to the research framework at this juncture and resulted in a 12-week abuse-specific cognitive behavioural program, entitled 'Little Steps'.The application of this program with a young sub-clinical group of children was evaluated in two group program iterations and three individual/family therapy modalities.After refinements
Author: Catherine Campbell
Language: English
Topic: Child Abuse and Trauma
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1509284809