Gone Baby Gone - Child Neglect

Gone Baby Gone – Neglect Child neglect is the failure to provide a child with basic needs. Child neglect is a form of maltreatment that is usually done to children by their parents or caregivers. “Child neglect is a term used most often to encompass parents’ or caretakers’ failure to provide basic physical health care, supervision, nutrition, personal hygiene, emotional nurturing, education, or safe housing” (Miller-Perrin, & Perrin, 2007). The issue with this definition is determining how much importance should be placed on parents “intentionality with regard to parental failure to provide” (Miller-Perrin, & Perrin, 2007). Along with this issue, raises the question about what happens if a family cannot afford to provide their child with basic needs? The United States Department of Health and Human Services (US DHHS) has broadened the definition of neglect to include this; “it distinguished between parental failure to provide when options are available and failure to provide when options are no available” (Miller-Perrin, & Perrin, 2007). Child neglect is looked at as an act of omission rather than an act of commission; but with this definition it did not include the parents or caregivers that did not provide for their child because of financial problems. The US DHHS also expanded the definition of neglect to include endangering a child, even if there is no actual harm seen, people are still considered a perpetrator if there is potential harm done. The movie Gone Baby Gone shows many different examples of neglect in a “real life” environment. Gone Baby Gone is a movie about a four year old girl, Amanda McCready, kidnapping. Two private investigators are hired to try and solve the case of who took Amanda. Amanda went missing because of the lack of care, neglect that her mother, Helene, was subjecting her to. Child neglect is the hardest type of maltreatment to define and is the most commonly reported type of maltreatment. The next issue looked at when

Cited: Miller-Perrin, C.L., & Perrin, R.D. (2007). Child matreatment. Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi: Sage Publications, Inc.