child custody

Research has focused on intimate partner violence (IPV) against women either before or after separation, but little attention has been paid to the changes in and persistence of violent behaviors from one situation to the next. This study contributes to the literature by comparing the changes in types and frequencies of abusive behaviors of women's former husbands. This allows us to understand how mechanisms of power are enacted through IPV both before and after separation. We interviewed 19 women in the Midwestern United States who had experienced IPV by their former husbands and had subsequently divorced them...

Latinas/os/xs experience pervasive rates of interpersonal violence victimization while also experiencing frequent discrimination and societal trauma (e.g., hate crimes). Betrayal trauma theory and cultural betrayal trauma theory provide frameworks for examining the distinct harm of violence perpetrated by a close other and by a member of the same marginalized group(s), respectively. However, no known research has examined the concurrent impacts of both forms of betrayal among Latina/o/x young adults. The current study examined the unique and multiplicative effects of high betrayal trauma (i...

OBJECTIVE: Suicide is a leading cause of death among youth in custodial settings. Prior research investigating risk factors for suicide among system-impacted youth fail to incorporate an intersectional framework to contextualize suicide risk among system-impacted girls of color. METHOD: Profiles of risk for self-injurious thoughts and behaviors (SITBs) were investigated in a sample of 240 racially and ethnically diverse system-impacted girls (mean [SD] age = 14...

Child abuse is a dangerous situation for an infant. Professionals need to weigh the risk of failing to act when children are seriously harmed against the serious harm done by carrying out safeguarding interventions. In severe cases, foster care might be advisable. The negative effects for the child's psychosocial development requires that such placement must be based on very solid evidence. Our aim is to identify why Dutch parents whose child may have a medical condition that could mimic symptoms of child abuse have a significant chance of being erroneously convicted and losing custody of their child...

Despite the non-recognition of same-sex relationships or marriage by the law, lesbian motherhood has become an emerging socio-legal issue in China. To fulfil their desires to reproduce and make a family, some Chinese lesbian couples adopt a `shared motherhood model' where one lesbian contributes an egg while her partner becomes pregnant through embryo transfer following artificial insemination with a donor's sperm. Because the shared motherhood model intentionally divides the roles of biological mother and gestational mother between lesbian couples, this has allowed legal controversies to emerge associated with the parenthood of the conceived child as well as custody, support of, and visitation of the child...

Most women in homeless populations are mothers, the majority being single mothers. Retaining child custody is challenging in homeless circumstances. Prospective longitudinal studies are needed to follow the moving pieces of housing and child custody in the context carefully-assessed psychiatric and substance use disorders over time. A 2-year prospective longitudinal study of an epidemiologic sample of individuals with literal homelessness included 59 mothers. Annual assessments included structured diagnostic interviews, detailed assessment of homeless circumstances, urine drug testing, and service use documented by both self report and data from agencies serving these individuals...

IMPORTANCE: Children experiencing poverty are more likely to experience worse health outcomes during the first few years of life, including injury, chronic illness, worse nutrition, and poorer sleep. The extent to which a poverty reduction intervention improves children's health, nutrition, sleep, and healthcare utilization is unknown. OBJECTIVE: To determine the effect of a 3-year, monthly unconditional cash transfer on health, nutrition, sleep, and healthcare utilization of children experiencing poverty who are healthy at birth...

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the metabolic pattern of illicit fentanyl in a sample of pregnant patients with opioid use disorder. Fentanyl pharmacokinetics during pregnancy are currently understudied yet the interpretation of a fentanyl immunoassay during pregnancy has significant implications on maternal legal custody and child welfare. Through this medical-legal lens, we demonstrate the utility of an emerging metric, the metabolic ratio, for accurate analysis of fentanyl pharmacokinetics during pregnancy...

OBJECTIVE: Infants affected by prenatal alcohol and drug use are more likely to be removed from parental custody than those in the general population, although it is unclear whether their custody outcomes differ from infants investigated by child protection systems (CPS) for other reasons. This analysis seeks to compare trajectories of involvement and custody outcomes among infants investigated by CPS with and without documentation of prenatal substance exposure (PSE). METHOD: We used vital birth records linked to administrative CPS records to examine the timing of system involvement and 3-year custodial outcomes among investigated infants with and without identified PSE...

INTRODUCTION: This research was designed to generate understandings of drivers and experiences of suicidal ideation and distress among Australian Construction Industry (ACI) workers, as well as what helped during these experiences. METHODS: Fifteen participants, from a variety of ACI or closely associated roles, with an average age of 45 years (29-66), engaged in individual, semi-structured interviews. Interviews were audio-recorded with consent and analyzed using descriptive thematic analysis...

BACKGROUND: Hardships such as custody issues and financial stress may increase suicide risk for individuals experiencing intimate partner problems, particularly intimate partner violence (IPV). The objective of this study was to examine associations among custody issues, financial strain, and IPV among female suicide decedents with known intimate partner problems using data from the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS). METHODS: NVDRS data from 2018, which comes from 41 U...

Interpersonal harm is a preventable public health problem. A growing body of literature shows persistently elevated exposure rates to physical and sexual victimization during incarceration. Yet how to prevent interpersonal harm during incarceration has proven far more elusive. A public health approach to prevention offers promise. To develop effective prevention strategies, the public health approach begins with defining and measuring the problem, followed by identifying risk and protective factors for the problem...

We conducted this first ever study comparing reports of custodial grandchildren's (CG) psychological difficulties obtained jointly from 163 custodial grandmothers (CGM) and their CG between ages 6-12. Internalizing and externalizing difficulties were indicated by whether any of the corresponding scales on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ, reported by CGM) or Dominic Interactive (DI, reported by CG) reached the 90th percentile. Internalizing and externalizing difficulties were reported by informant types at rates higher than those typically observed in the general population, with externalizing difficulties being more prevalent among male CG...

Legal actions are perhaps the most powerful responses to child maltreatment. Criminal and child protection investigation and forensic interviewing can provide the evidence needed to support a child victim's disclosure. Prosecution of child maltreatment can hold perpetrators accountable. Juvenile and family court actions can provide for children's safety and oversee their care in state custody and journey to a permanent home. This commentary introduces readers to a special issue of the journal  Child Maltreatment  that focuses on the legal system response to child abuse and neglect...

This qualitative study examined the prevalence of the "Nine Ds," a framework developed by Edwards and Benson for understanding the heterogeneity of reasons for which grandparents assume care of grandchildren (i.e., death, disease, detention, divorce, departure, drugs, desertion, delivery, deployment) in a contemporary sample. Using a nationwide sample of custodial grandparents ( N = 322) and foster parents (N = 105) , caregivers were asked their reason for assuming care of the grandchild or foster child within their care...

BACKGROUND: Parental alienation is a relatively newly described disorder, with a growing prevalence, as divorce and custody battles are becoming more and more complex with increased difficulty of joint custody. In parental alienation, one parent, the alienating parent, forms an alliance with the child involved in the custody dispute and manages to effectively alienate the targeted parent completely. The child and the alienating parent manifest a form of folie à deux and, hence, are in complete synchrony in the hatred and denigration of the targeted parent...

OBJECTIVES: To report the current state of maternal infant bonding (MIB) in mothers of tracheostomy-dependent infants and identify demographic factors associated with MIB. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted at a pediatric tertiary care hospital. Mothers of tracheostomy-dependent children below the age of two, seen during the 24 months prior to June 2021, were recruited to participate. The exclusion criteria consisted of clinical instability of the infant at the time of recruitment or lack of custody...

AIM: This study aims to provide an overview of the association between being in the custody of the chief executive of Oranga Tamariki (the child welfare agency of the New Zealand (NZ) government) and all-cause hospitalisation and mortality. METHODS: This was a national retrospective cohort study using linked administrative data from the Integrated Data Infrastructure. Data were obtained for all 0-17 year-olds living in NZ on 31 December 2013. In-care status was ascertained at this point...

The global COVID-19 pandemic has particularly affected justice-involved children. Youth justice policy changes and innovations have assisted communication and engagement with these vulnerable children during unprecedented times, while attempting to limit risks of contagion and criminalisation - all central tenets of the 'Child First' guiding principle for the Youth Justice System of England and Wales. While some changes have enhanced the experiences of some justice-involved children (gains), others have disproportionately disadvantaged justice-involved children in court, community and custody contexts (pains), increasing criminalisation, disengagement and anxiety...

Though child shared physical custody arrangements after divorce are much more frequent and parents who use it more diverse in many European countries, little is known about their economic consequences for parents. By relaxing family time constraints, does shared custody help divorced mothers return to or stay on work more easily? Since lone mothers are one of the least-employed groups, and they face high unemployment rates, the type of child custody arrangement adopted after divorce is of particular interest for their employability...