Professional Documents
Culture Documents
2101.5 Definitions
Abandonment
This occurs when a parent, stepparent, guardian, custodian or other person in
control of or having responsibility for a child leaves a child unattended or in
someone's care with no intention to return to assume care and responsibility for
the child. Examples of abandonment includes leaving a baby with a stranger,
leaving a baby in a garbage can, leaving a child with no apparent intention to
return or refusing to cooperate with the department to have a child returned to
one's care.
Assessment
The process of assessment includes all activities and documentation, which
focuses not only on the incident and risk of maltreatment, a family's strengths,
and needs and the conditions or behaviors that need to change. The focus is to
ensure protection and safety to children and to understand the risk to a child.
Once safety is ensured, it is necessary to examine the origin and the extent of
the maltreatment and to determine the family's ability to make changes that will
eliminate or significantly reduce future risk of repeated maltreatment.
Battered Child:
A child upon whom multiple, continuing, often serious non-accidental injuries
have been inflicted.
Berube, M. (2002) The American Heritage Stedmans Medical Dictionary,
Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Co.
Battered Child Syndrome
A combination of continuing, often serious physical injuries, such as bruises,
scratches, hematomas, burns, or malnutrition, inflicted on a child through gross
abuse usually by parents, guardians, or other individuals.
Berube, M. (2002) The American Heritage Stedmans Medical Dictionary,
Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Co.
Caretaker
This is a parent, guardian, foster parent, employee of a public or private
residential home or facility or a day care facility, personnel of public and private
schools or any other person often found in the same household or caretaking unit
for a child (e.g. boyfriend/girlfriend, stepparent, adoptive parent).
Primary caretaker: The adult (typically the parent) living in the household
who assumes the most responsibility for childcare.
Secondary caretaker: An adult living in or often in the household who
has routine responsibility for childcare, but less responsibility than the
primary caretaker. A significant other may be a secondary caretaker
even though this person has minimal childcare responsibility.
Case Determination
This is the finding upon the completion of a CPS investigation of either
substantiated or unsubstantiated.
Social Services Manual
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Family Plan
Social Services Manual
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Homestead Services
This is the department's most intensive family preservation service. It is a
contracted service. It is a family focused, crisis-oriented, short-term (180 day),
intensive in-home counseling program for families with children at risk of foster
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(2)
Bestiality;
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Masturbation;
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9) Penetration of the vagina or rectum by any object except when done as
part of a recognized medical procedure.
Sexual Exploitation (O.C.G.A. 19-7-5)
This is a form of maltreatment in which a child's parent or caretaker allows,
permits, encourages or requires a child under the age of eighteen years to
engage in sexual acts for the stimulation and/or gratification of adults or in
prostitution as defined by law (O.C.G.A. 16-6-9), or allows, permits, encourages
or requires a child to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of
producing any visual or print medium (O.C.G.A. 16-12-100).
Shaken Baby Syndrome
A syndrome in infants in which brain injury is caused by shaking of such violence
that the childs brain rebounds against the skull, resulting in bruising, swelling,
and bleeding of the brain and often leading to permanent, severe brain damage
or death.
Berube, M. (2002) The American Heritage Stedmans Medical Dictionary,
Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Co
Signs of Danger
Observable indicators of danger.
Substance Abuse
A maladaptive pattern of substance use leading to clinically significant
impairment or distress, as manifested by one (or more) of the following, occurring
within a 12-month period:
1. recurrent substance use resulting in a failure to fulfill major role
obligations at work, school or home;
2.recurrent substance use in situations in which it is physically hazardous;
3.recurrent substance-related legal problems;
4.continued substance use despite persistent or recurrent social or
interpersonal problems caused by or exacerbated by the effects of the
substance.
American Psychiatric Association. (2000) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of
Mental Disorders, (4th ed., text revision). Arlington, VA.
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