Recently we started a point of discussion on the nfpcar.org group, in which we asked this question; Define “child abuse”? To a majority of our members it meant the same as we defined in this partial exert from the Arizona Revised Statutes; (not an exact quote just enough to give you the idea).

Definition; a person presently under the age of eighteen (18) is the subject of physical, sexual or emotional abuse, neglect, abandonment or exploitation which a parent, guardian or custodian has inflicted, may inflict, permitted another person to inflict or had reason to know another person may inflict AND contains sufficient information to locate the child.

• 1). Physical abuse and non-accidental injury are terms used interchangeably. The term "physical abuse" implies that the child victim is physically injured by the actions, whether or not intentional, of the caretaker.
• 2). "Neglect" or "neglected" means the inability or unwillingness of a parent, guardian or custodian of a child to provide that child with supervision, food, clothing, shelter or medical care if that inability or unwillingness causes substantial risk of harm to the child's health or welfare, except if the inability of a parent, guardian or custodian to provide services to meet the needs of a child with a disability.

• 3. Sexual abuse; NationalCenter for Child Abuse and Child Neglect defined sexual abuse as the involvement of dependent, developmentally immature children and adolescents in sexual activities that they do not fully comprehend.

   

The three basic forms of “child abuse”, the ones that Child Protective Services uses most of the time, "failure to protect" is often used to describe most allegations under the definition of physical, however one of these terms will always apply to most incidents that occur in the home while in the caretakers supervision.  All of these terms are very hard to prove but there are sometimes ambiguous statements used in allegations, not only for foster parents who would be the caretakers in the Foster Care System, but also in the case of biological parents. What we are attempting to do in this article is define the phrase “Child Abuse”. 

•  Why ? There is an epidemic spreading across this country that is of great concern to this examiner.  Thousands of families are experiencing the systematic elimination of their parental rights, including biological parents; remember;,the children in the Foster Care System came from biological homes.