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Preventing Abuse of Children and Young People with Disabilities

Dr. Sally M. Rogow,
Professor Emerita, Faculty of Education, UBC

"Abuse of persons with disabilities is perpetrated by deliberate neglect as well as by direct actions. For those people with disabilities who require the care of others for basic necessities, neglect can be as grossly abusive as any direct physical, sexual or verbal abuse."
(Is Anyone Listening? Report of the British Columbia Task Force on Family Violence, p. 233)

Children with disabilities who are cared for in managed facilities with little regard for their emotional and psychological needs are victims of emotional abuse.

Dennis lived in seven foster homes. He has Down's Syndrome and was abandoned by his teenage mother in the hospital. His restlessness and frustration intensified with each move to another home. He has no contact with his natural family and is becoming more and more difficult to handle. Heavy doses of medication are used to make him more manageable. Dennis has become unresponsive and lethargic. He knows no consistency of personal care and his pleas for attention are unanswered. He is treated as an object, to be controlled, subdued, and made manageable. He is robbed of a voice, a sense of identity by a system of care which does not recognize his profound despair or acknowledge his deeply felt emotional needs.

Olivia is a tiny, frail girl who has Cerebral Palsy. She was born in a small rural community and transferred to an urban hospital shortly after her birth. An assessment team advised her parents that she was severely mentally retarded and probably would not live very long. Olivia continued to live at the hospital and was transferred to a special care facility for medically fragile children. Her parents could not afford to visit her more than once a year. No school program or any other treatment or intervention was ever made available. Olivia's loneliness and despondency are the result of profound neglect.

Phillip is blind. He was removed from his home because of suspected abuse and has had no contact with his family. He was placed in an institution for the mentally handicapped, despite the fact that he could speak in grammatical sentences when he was six years of age and two years later was transferred to a group home. His special needs were ignored. He was socially isolated and denied an education. Nor was he ever taught to use a mobility cane and walk independently.

Children with disabilities who are cared for in managed facilities with little regard for their emotional and psychological needs are victims of emotional abuse. Isolation, dependence on caregivers, physical defenselessness and impaired communication make them extremely vulnerable. At the present time, there are no explicit standards of care established for children with disabilities living away from their homes. Nor is there uniform accessibility to support services. The quality of care is inadequate when it ignores the psychological needs of children.

Isolation in socially sterile environments, deprivation of opportunities to learn and grow, overuse of restraints and medication and punitive treatment are too commonly experienced.

Emotional abuse and neglect are part of every type of abuse and take place in schools, hospitals, group and foster homes and institutions. David Gil, a noted authority on child abuse, observed that abusive or neglectful acts not only deprive children of their rights, but they are also barriers to their development. Physical defenselessness and impaired communication intensify vulnerability. Isolation in socially sterile environments, deprivation of opportunities to learn and grow, overuse of restraints and medication and punitive treatment are too commonly experienced. Often the label attached to the child prejudices the paid caregiver and focuses attention on the disability, and not the child.

Prevention involves far more than government inspections, regulations and statements on social policy. It begins with how children with disabilities are viewed by the community at large and assumes that those who provide care are well-informed and sensitive to the emotional and social needs of children. Moving children out of large, impersonal institutions and placing them in smaller residential programs or group homes does not assure access to emotional nurturance in stimulating environments. Special needs caregivers, social workers, physicians, nurses, teachers and other child care workers need information about how to balance social with treatment concerns.

Crisis intervention and stop gap measures rarely achieve the continuity of treatment and education that children require. There is a compelling need for comprehensive preventive or proactive intervention strategies. There is a need for generic as well as specialized agencies to work together and make protection, intervention and treatment a reality.

The Person Within Public Education Campaign (TPWPEC) speaks on behalf of disabled children and youth. This crucial public education campaign will comprise a new video, handbook, workshop series and public service announcements for broadcast media. It will educate a broad cross-section of people dealing with disabled youth and focus on the preventative.

With support from federal and provincial governments and private agencies, the BC Institute Against Family Violence is making a high-quality educational video to promote public awareness and provide needed information to caregivers, social and child care workers, teachers, nurses and others involved in providing care to children with disabilities. A handbook is being written and province-wide workshops are being planned. The video is being made in cooperation with parents and organizations serving and advocating for the rights of people with disabilities.