Professional approach in the management of sexual abuse in children and adolescents: Experiences of parents of sexual abused children and their evaluation of professional approach

This article describes experiences of parents of sexual abused children and their evaluations of institutional interventions on sexual child abuse. Re sults are presented of a study investigating 'individual and institutional reactions on sexual child abuse: The number of contacted institutions, pers onel experiences with these institutions and resulting requirements are des cribed. The results are based on a sample of 47 (82,5%) girls and 10 (17,5% ) boys (range 6-18 years) and interviews with their 'non-abusing' parents. 28 (49,1%) of these children were abused by a member of the family, 29 (50. 9%) children by non-familiar persons. It could be shown that 70,2% of the c hildren had contacted four or more different institutions soon after the se xual abuse had been revealed. In cases of sexual abuse by a family member t he first contacted institution was the Youth-and-Health-Care-System whereas in cases of sexual abuse by non-familiar persons mostly the police was con tacted. Nevertheless in most cases both judical and supporting approach wer e chosen. Additionally to concrete advices and professional competences the interviewed parents reported that emotional warmth was a very helpful aspe ct of the professional intervention. Generally the perspective of the paren ts seems to give some interesting informations about 'consumer satisfaction '.