Types/ Signs of Abuse and Neglect that May Be Experienced by Different Individuals

Physical abuse-includes assault, hitting, slapping, pushing, and misuse of medication, restraint or inappropriate physical sanctions. Force feeding, slapping or breaking bones by inappropriate movement. Some signs may include; bruises, fractures, swollen joints, burns, damage to body organs.

In 2000, eight-year-old Victoria Adjo Climbié, was tortured and murdered by her guardians. Her death led to a public inquiry and produced major changes in child protection policies in the UK. Climbié was burnt with cigarettes, tied up for periods of longer than 24 hours, and hit with bike chains, hammers and wires. Up to her death, the police, the social services department of four local authorities, the National Health Service, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), and local churches all had contact with her, and noted the signs of abuse.

Baby P was a 17-month-old English boy who died in London in 2007 after suffering more than fifty injuries over an eight-month period, during which he was repeatedly seen by the London Borough of Haringey Children's services and National Health Service (NHS) health professionals.

This type of abuse is child abuse and some factors that could have led to this would be:

• Lack of support - from either friend, family or school.
• Lack of parenting skills. The abuser may have a history of child abuse.
• Untreated mental illness.
• Domestic violence.

In this case they suffered physical vulnerability.

Psychological abuse- Is caused by someone behaving in such a way as to cause a psychological trauma, they may become very anxious or depressed and self-harming. With this type of abuse it could happen for a long time and also could not be noticed for a long time, Psychological abuse is the act of inflicting; emotional abuse, verbal abuse or humiliation. Emotional abuse may include: threat or punishment, saying hurtful things that will lower someone’s self-confidence, threating someone and lowering affection towards someone if they don’t act in a certain way. Verbal abuse may include: deliberately using disrespectful language to a service user, shouting or threating a service user, making a service user feel insecure, unsafe or lower self-esteem. Humiliation may include: belittling a service user in front of family, friends or other individuals, undermining a service user and deliberate embarrassment.

Samantha’s suffered verbal & emotional abuse, she began a relationship with her partner at 18, while she suffered emotional abuse this left her scared and takes longer to heal than physical abuse, and there was many people that could have seen this for example, her friends, college, the public, her family and more. Factors that lead to this abuse/ Warning signs. His anger towards her & jealousy. Samantha begins to change her appearance. She became withdrawn. Isolated from friends. She was made to feel ‘crazy’ & ‘invisible’. In this case they suffered social vulnerability and emotional vulnerability.

Financial abuse-including theft, fraud, internet scamming, defraud, often the people “defrauding” are usually ‘friends’ of the service user Factors that lead to this abuse.

Abuse by discrimination- there are different types of discrimination for example;

Age - ageism is stereotyping and discriminating against individuals or groups based on their age.

Sex/ Gender - gender discrimination is letting a person a person receive a job because of their sex/ gender.

Race - This is the unequal treatment of workers in the workplace because of their skin colour.

Culture - It’s the case of indigenous people, migrants or religious minorities.

Religion - This is treating individuals different in employment due to their religious belief and practices.

Sexual Orientation - It usually refers to a predisposition towards heterosexual people, which is biased against lesbian, gay, and bisexual people.

Domestic abuse- This is when a person is subjected to behaviour that control, scare threaten or try to persuade them to do something against their will, this occurs between people who are over 16.

Some signs may include;

• Controlling - abusers use their control like a weapon,
• Jealousy and Possessive - they may be jealous with your family or your relationship with child or pets,
• Inequality of power - in an abusive relationship there is a clear unbalance of power,
• Explosive temper - abusers often have a very hot temper,
• Destruction of self-worth - abusers destroy the victims self-worth and confident,
• Fears and Threats - an abuser may install fear into their victim and finally
• Physical Harm.

This is an example of domestic abuse, Katie piper was domestically abused by her ex-boyfriend in 2008 were Lynch raped and beat Piper, threatened to cut her with a razor and hang her and stabbed her several times. Furthermore on the 31st march 2008 two days after the first attack her ex-boyfriend planned an acid attack towards her which left her permanently scarred by the attack. Factors that lead to this abuse.

Neglect is the failure to provide the proper care needed to the service user, examples of this could include- Some signs may include; signs of malnutrition, dehydration, poor or improper hygiene, poor self-image (over-grown nails, unclean hair, dirt. ), major weight loss.