Types of Abuse
Child abuse falls into one or more of the following four categories:
- Physical Abuse – may involve hitting, shaking, throwing, poisoning, burning or scalding, drowning, suffocating or otherwise causing physical harm to a child. Physical harm may also be caused when a parent or carer deliberately fabricates symptoms or induces illness in a child.
- Emotional Abuse – the persistent ill-treatment of a child that causes severe and continual adverse effects on the child’s emotional development.
- Neglect – the persistent failure to meet a child’s basic physical and/or psychological needs, which is likely to result in the serious impairment of the child’s health or development.
- Sexual Abuse – involves forcing or enticing a child to take part in sexual activities whether or not they are aware of what is happening. Sexual abuse can include physical contact or non-contact activities such as involving the child in looking at, or the production of abusive images.
The category of abuse under which a child is made the subject of a child protection plan will be decided at the child protection conference. As a child protection plan progresses, it may be appropriate to change the category of abuse at a review child protection conference.