Peer Review Feedback – Barriers Educators Face in Identifying and Reporting Child Abuse and Neglect (CAN)
The submitted systemic literature review (SLR) explores the barriers educators face in identifying and reporting child abuse and neglect (CAN), a vital and socially relevant issue. This review evaluates the draft using the provided rubric, focusing on the clarity of the introduction, methodological transparency, accuracy of results reporting, and the overall structure and readability of the paper. It also responds to the author’s request for feedback on the revised introduction and general comprehension.
Introduction
The introduction is well-developed and demonstrates a commendable shift from an opinionated tone to an academic, objective voice. It clearly outlines the significance of the educator’s role in detecting CAN and presents credible data to support its context. The reference to Ferrara et al. (2023) effectively establishes the problem of inconsistent trauma identification among educators. The research question is concise and relevant, asking what psychoeducational tools and resources can support teachers in identifying and reporting abuse more effectively.
Feedback
The introduction would benefit from slightly more specific examples or data about educators’ underreporting behaviors. This would further ground the issue in evidence-based urgency.
Methods
The methods section outlines a solid database search strategy using Academic Search Ultimate, ScienceDirect, and EBSCO. The author documents keyword refinement and the inclusion criteria focusing on K–12 educators and students. While this section meets the assignment’s core requirements, the description could be more systematic.
Feedback
For clarity and replicability, explicitly list all inclusion and exclusion criteria and consider presenting them in a structured format. Reference to a PRISMA-like flow diagram is recommended to trace article selection and exclusion steps for the final draft.
Results
The author provides an overview of the twelve included studies, noting the diversity in research design, such as qualitative, mixed-methods, and longitudinal designs. This section helps the reader understand the methodological spread across studies and sets a foundation for deeper analysis. It’s good that the draft avoids overt interpretation; however, transitions between study types could be smoother, and statistical or sampling details are minimal.
Feedback
The final draft should include more numerical precision, for example, the number of articles reviewed at each stage and refer to the SLR articles. Avoid planning notes like “this is where I’ll become more descriptive” and instead describe findings clearly and concisely.
Discussion and Conclusion
Although still in development, the discussion section plans to evaluate educator training, understanding of trauma, and implementation of trauma-informed practices. The planned mention of study limitations, such as low response rates and retrospective data, demonstrates an appropriate critical picture.
Feedback
Begin synthesizing key findings from the results into initial discussion points. For instance, highlight any specific interventions that proved effective or any barriers educators commonly faced across studies.
Writing and Format
The writing is professional, well-organized, and mostly free of grammatical errors. APA formatting is correctly applied for the references included so far, though the complete set of twelve articles must appear in the final version. Topic sentences and transitions are generally strong, with minor areas for smoother phrasing.
Final Thoughts
This draft shows solid progress toward a high-quality SLR. To enhance the final submission, focus on methodological transparency, complete the resulting synthesis, and integrate all reviewed articles into the references. Overall, the topic is timely, and the draft demonstrates both academic rigor and growing clarity.
References
Ferrara, A. M., Panlilio, C. C., & Tirrell-Corbin, C. (2023). Exploring school professionals’ definitions of childhood trauma. Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma, 16(3), 783–793. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40653-023-00550-0
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Question 
Peer Review Feedback – Barriers Educators Face in Identifying and Reporting Child Abuse and Neglect (CAN)
1.) Please give a peer review feedback on the writing.
2.) Please respond to the questions indicated by the peer below (Notes for my Peer).
Barriers Educators Face in Identifying and Reporting Child Abuse and Neglect (CAN)
Abstract
Many children are often experiencing child abuse and or neglect (CAN) within their residential spaces (caregiver’s home, foster home, etc.) that goes unnoticed. This exposure to abuse and neglect can be monitored with the support of educational professionals observing and accurately reporting when child abuse or neglect is suspected. Yet, many educators have varying understandings of what child abuse may look like and struggle to appropriately report. This systematic review of twelve articles seeks to answer what barrs an educational professional from accurately reporting child abuse and or neglect. Common themes include the variability in understanding of CAN and how that affects responses, the emotional toll CAN has on children, as well as the overall strain that is placed upon educational professionals. With this information, educators may be able to better understand what CAN may look like and how to accurately report, all while maintaining their overall mental and emotional well-being.
Keywords: CAN, children, educators, trauma
Introduction
Many children spend a significant portion of their daily lives in school environments. On average, a child attends school for approximately 6 hours and 35 minutes per day, not including any additional time that may be spent participating in school-sanctioned extracurricular activities (Roth et al., 2003). These activities, which reportedly involve over 4 million children just in the United States, extend the time that educators spend with students and this often places them in a unique position to observe students’ overall well-being (Lerner, 2015).
Despite this level of interaction, many cases of child abuse and neglect (CAN) remain unrecognized, misunderstood, or unreported. Research suggests that educators’ ability to identify and respond to signs of abuse can vary based on their educational backgrounds and professional experiences. Ferrara et al. (2023) found that educators’ understanding of childhood trauma and abuse is inconsistent, which can lead to children not receiving the necessary mental health and interventional support needed. Lack of recognizing signs of abuse and neglect may also lead to misinterpretations of trauma-related behaviors, such as emotional dysregulation. Lack of knowledge of mental health may result in educational professionals observing these emotional dysregulation periods and mislabeling them as Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) or Conduct Disorder (CD), which can potentially lead to stigmatization.
Ferrara et al. (2023)’s research also observed that students are more likely to disclose personal or traumatic experiences to educators with whom they feel safe with and have built a trusting relationship, rather than sharing with administrative staff such as professionals or deans. Yet, these trusted educators are often facing the lack of sufficient training and resources to appropriately assess, respond to, and report worries related to child abuse and or neglect.
Social workers are trained to engage in their work with the use of a framework guided by core ethical values, including the “importance of human relationships” as well as the commitment to “practice within one’s area of competence” (National Association of Social Workers, 2021). Their role in advocating for systemic improvements and supporting professionals across various settings-including schools-emphasizes the value of interdisciplinary coordination and collaboration with regard to a child’s welfare and overall well-being. Social workers also can support other adults in fields working with children by encouraging the integration of trauma-informed practices, to aid in professional development.
To better support educators in their ability to observe, detect, and report on CAN, more structured opportunities for professional development (which could include training in trauma-informed care as well as psychoeducation) could be provided. Effective and impactful practices may include the ability to create a safe physical and emotional space, maintain expectations and provide structure, as well as foster positive student-educator relationships. These practices are primarily implemented in educational settings, but they are also applicable in other environments, such as healthcare facilities and community organizations.
This literature review will explore the following question: What kind of psychoeducation and resources are needed for educators’ to enhance their ability to identify and report suspected child abuse and neglect? I will seek information on how to identify resources and strategies that empower and encourage educators to better respond to the needs of struggling and vulnerable students.
Methods
Using Academic Search Ultimate, ScienceDirect journals, and the Academic Search Premier (EBSCO) database, I searched for topic-relevant peer-reviewed articles and journals. To ensure I was able to obtain data that could be translated to current experiences, I specified my search to look for published articles and journals from the past 10 years. When searching, I focused on utilizing a small amount of key-words. The first search focused on “statistical rates of underreporting of childhood abuse and neglect, by educators”, which gave me a wide variety of results that weren’t entirely supportive to my research. I then refined it to utilize some of those key words but focused primarily on “educators and child abuse and neglect”. With this combination of words I was able to obtain more specific information/targeted articles more relevant to this topic.
To be included in this systematic review, the studies needed to focus both on educators for children in grades K-12 as well as the children that fit in that demographic. With these specific parameters in place, studies with participants of children in this age range or educators who engage with students of this age range who have exposure to abuse and neglect, were obtained. Because this is a topic that can be hard to obtain consistent or accurate data from, I worked towards gathering information from United States based research but was able to find supportive studies from other countries.
Results
The two searches first yielded zero specific results/relevant articles. When implementing the specified search terms, there were 50 articles that seemed relevant to this topic. All the results were found in English. After analyzing the journals and articles by their title, abstract, and methods section, I was able to exclude about half of the articles due to the structure of the article and how the study was conducted. Most of the articles that were unsupportive of this topic focused primarily on literature reviews themselves and were removed from the process of the systematic review. After further reviewing the remaining studies, I found about 15 studies that I was ready to analyze and gather content for this review. In the end 12 articles were the most descriptive studies that were utilized for this systematic review.
Most studies utilized were (n=5) qualitative, two of these studies were both mixed methods, one study was cross-sectional, three were longitudinal, one was quasi-experimental, and one utilized a pretest/posttest design…this is where i’ll become more descriptive in the methods of each study:
● Quasi-expermiental had potential confounding variables due to various experiences and exposure to the work of an educator
● Most qualitative studies utilized semi-structured interviewing or utilization of surveys
● The longitudinal designs, ⅔ of them were conducted between varying “waves” or time points. One of the longitudinal studies obtained data retrospectively
● One of the cross sectional studies was determined by ACEs, psychological well-being, and other mental health screening tools. One of them specifically utilized a survey method
● One quantitative study utilized a variety of surveys in conjunction with a qualitative perspective as well. The other qualitative study had an exploratory focus, with the utilization of vignettes to the prompts/questions of the study.
-followed by description of the common themes for why most of these studies were conducted and what the hopes for results would be. Many found a need to appropriately find ways to support both children and their educators in the situation of child abuse and neglect
Findings:
Description of common themes found in the studies collectively. Mentioning of such longitudinal studies as they provide stronger data on the effects of psychoeducation on trauma for children and the effects of reporting.
Conclusion:
Description of what the main focus of this review was, which was to analyze articles with a wide range of data to understand the necessity of reporting child abuse and neglect, how well teachers/educational professionals understand trauma, and what trauma-informed practices or interventions could be implemented for educators to appropriately and effectively observe and report child abuse and/or neglect.
Limitations:
This section will summarize the limitations that were found within each study like retrospective surveying, utilization of vignettes, small amounts of “waves” utilized in longitudinal surveys, low response rates, etc.
Implications:
Many of the studies described methods or interventions to engage in when working with children, especially if educators are observing behaviors that feel abnormal or alarming. This section will focus on reviewing and summarizing the common themes or specific measures being taken.
References
1) Roth, J. L., Brooks-Gunn, J., Linver, M. R., & Hofferth, S. L. (2003). What Happens During the School Day? Time Diaries from a National Sample of Elementary School Teachers. Teachers College Record, 105(3), 317–343. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9620.00242
2) Ferrara, A. M., Panlilio, C. C., & Tirrell-Corbin, C. (2023). Exploring School Professionals’ Definitions of Childhood Trauma. Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40653-023-00550-0
3) National Association of Social Workers. (2021). NASW code of ethics. National Association of Social Workers. https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English
Notes for my Peer:
● I’m looking to see if I can get an objective perspective on how I’ve written my introduction as i reworded my previous work for this class as it originally sounded opinionated, so i’d like to know if i’ve improved on this
● Just really looking for general opinions on the comprehension of the material provided.