Uncertain Legacies: Resilience and Institutional Child Abuse - A Literature Review - Research Findings

Institutional child abuse

The Scottish Government (2002) describes five categories of harm which constitute child abuse: physical injury; physical neglect; emotional abuse; sexual abuse; and non organic failure to thrive. When any of these harms are inflicted on a child in any of a range of care settings provided by the public, voluntary or private sector, they are defined as institutional abuse (Gallagher, 2000). Professional practice has changed significantly in the last few decades, and is now underpinned by a public ethos which seeks to safeguard the wellbeing of children in all care settings - evidenced by for example efforts to promote safer recruitment practices, registration of care workers, closer monitoring and inspection of residential homes and the introduction of the Scottish Government's Getting It Right For Every Child strategy (GIRFEC) However it is acknowledged that abuse of children while in institutional care has occurred and requires appropriate state responses. This review focussed on institutional child abuse in a very specific circumstance: that which occurs in residential care. The rates of all forms of child abuse are unknown, and there is a distinct lack of research relating to institutional abuse in particular, although a proliferation of high profile, national investigations in recent years indicate that it affects some children in care. Residential care can be a positive turning point in many children's lives. Nevertheless, revelations of persistent abuse of some children in the care system suggest that formal care settings have not always been the safe, stable and nurturing environments they were thought to be.

Many of the papers reviewed addressed resilience and looked after children, but on the assumption that any abuse experienced had taken place before admission. It is difficult to unravel the impacts of different strands of abuse which occur at different times. However, Wolfe et al (2003) identified five longer term impacts associated with institutional abuse: betrayal and diminished trust; shame, guilt and humiliation; fear of, or disrespect for, authority; avoidance of reminders; and injury or vicarious trauma (p184-187).

Although the literature reviewed did not directly discuss resilience in relation to survivors of institutional child abuse in residential care, it was possible to identify various aspects of abuse experienced in this context which might hamper the development of resilience. These included: the isolation of a child in institutions invested with high levels of public trust, away from family and community support; the stigmatisation of children in care, which might make their claims of abuse less convincing; and the particular difficulties associated with disclosure, a potentially public process which may be prolonged over a period of many years, and which, if met with disbelief or rebuff, has the potential to cause further traumatisation to the adult survivor.