This chapter appears in Child Maltreatment in Residential Care: History, Research, and Current Practice, a volume of research examining the institutionalization of children, child abuse and neglect in residential care, and interventions preventing and responding to violence against children living in out-of-home care settings around the world.
Abstract
The present chapter presents findings from a large-scale study of the experiences of victimization by peers and by staff of adolescents in Israeli residential care settings (RCSs) for children at risk. It is based on the self-reports of more than 1300 adolescents residing in 32 Arab and Jewish RCSs. The study shows that safety issues in Israeli residential care facilities are widespread and that many adolescents had experienced at least one physical (56%), sexual (40%), verbal (73%), or indirect (62%) act of violence at the hands of their peers in the month prior to the survey. In addition, about 29% of the adolescents reported that they had been verbally maltreated, and one-quarter had been physically maltreated by staff at least once in the month prior to the survey. Guided by a social-ecological perspective, the study investigates the contributions of a range of adolescent-level (e.g., age, gender, adjustment difficulties, perceived staff support, and strictness) and RCS-level (i.e., RCS type of care, RCS structure, size, and ethnic affiliation of the institution) factors explaining the variance in reports of victimization by peers and staff across adolescents and RCSs. The study emphasizes the need for the development of interventions and preventions tailored to the groups at risk of victimization identified.