The Child Maltreatment Lab
Research Focus
The Child Maltreatment Lab conducts research across various forms of maltreatment, including sexual abuse, physical abuse, and neglect. Research efforts include:
- Development of assessments and interventions for victims and families
- Projects examining the heterogeneous symptom presentation of child and adolescent sexual abuse victims and factors that influence symptom presentation
- Maltreatment prevention
- Understanding the correlates and consequences of maltreatment
Research Efforts Integrated in the Community
The Child Maltreatment Lab has developed and is evaluating a model intervention program based in the BraveBe Child Advocacy Center, Project SAFE (Sexual Abuse Family Education), which addresses the mental health needs of child victims and their families following sexual abuse. This effort also includes the development of assessment instruments for evaluating outcomes, such as a weekly problems scale for child victims and their parents, and measures for assessing parent and child expectations for child functioning following sexual abuse.
The lab's research also addresses maltreatment prevention in the local community through work with Head Start home-based and center-based programs. The lab’s Head Start research investigates risk factors using an ecological model, explores relationships among risks and substantiated abuse and neglect, and examines the program’s ability to identify and reduce risk.
Previous ABCT Featured Lab
The Child Maltreatment Lab was chosen as the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies' (ABCT) first "Featured Lab." Read the full article here, along with information about current ABCT featured labs.
Members of the Child Maltreatment Lab at the ABCT Annual Conference, 2017