Conceptual frameworks for programs addressing violence against children: a scoping review

ABSTRACT Objective: Map the conceptual frameworks for programs addressing violence against children developed in primary health care. Method: This is a scoping review that followed the methodological recommendations of the Joanna Briggs Institute. A reference manager and qualitative analysis software were used for data management and analysis. Results: 1,346 studies were pre-selected and analyzed. The final sample consisted of 24 studies, mostly published in the 2000s. Three strategic actions were identified in programs: Home Visitation, Children Exposed to Violence, and Parenting Development, most of them focused on the level of intervention. No study explained the conceptual frameworks guiding the programs. Conclusion: Mapped programs were well structured and essential for addressing domestic violence against children. They mainly adopted the multi-causal concept to understand the health-disease process, which was restricted to overcoming the contradictions of violence.

De/gendering violence and racialising blame in Swedish child welfare: what has childhood got to do with it?

This article is a critical interrogation of how gender and power figure in Swedish child welfare policy and the discourses on violence in intimate relationships vis-à-vis children exposed to violence. Drawing on feminist violence research, critical childhood studies, and intersectional perspectives, we identify a differentiation with racialised undertones in the understanding of violence as a social problem when related to children’s exposure. While predominately gender-neutral discourses of social heredity and epidemiology run through the material for the seemingly ‘universal’ child, forms of violence ascribed to the presumed cultural Others link to gender, structural power and sexuality. The article concludes that gendered articulations of violence are restricted yet pivotal if children’s exposure is to be linked to issues of inequality and power. However, when gendering interlinks with racialisation, problematic differentiations of violence, childhoods and children are produced.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ul><li>Gendered articulations of violence are pivotal if children’s exposure to violence is also to be linked to social justice issues.</li><br /><li>Racialisation is indicated when gender, sexuality and power are linked to the culturally Other but not the ‘general’ child.</li></ul>