Healthcare and Child Protection Synergy: Preventing Maltreatment and Promoting Wellbeing

In healthcare, the intersection with child protection systems presents a unique set of challenges and opportunities to significantly enhance child and family health and wellbeing. As healthcare providers engage with child welfare systems, there is a critical need to examine and refine the continuum of interventions ranging from prevention to treatment. These interactions are crucial in mitigating child maltreatment and fostering health outcomes. Recent studies have begun to address these intersections through various empirical methods, but gaps remain in understanding the best practices for effectively integrating these systems.

This Research Topic aims to deepen the understanding of the interplays between healthcare and child protection systems to develop more effective prevention and treatment strategies. It seeks to explore a range of healthcare settings, from outpatient primary care to hospital-based care, and encompass evidence-driven approaches to prevent or reduce child maltreatment. This includes investigating the roles of social need screenings, responses to maltreatment, and supports provided throughout a child’s involvement in the child welfare system.

To gather further insights into effectively bridging healthcare and child protection, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:
• Empirical evaluations of prevention and treatment interventions within healthcare settings.
• Evidence-based strategies for screening and responding to social risks and maltreatment.
• Insights into the healthcare and child welfare systems' interactions and their impact on interventions.
• Outcomes of enhanced social need screenings in preventing maltreatment.
• Processes for supporting child health and wellbeing in different contexts of welfare involvement.

This Research Topic also invites a variety of article types, including Brief Research Report, Original Research, Clinical Trial, Mini Review, Review, and Systematic Review.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Community Case Study
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Study Protocol
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: 'Social Pediatrics', 'Multidisciplinary Studies', 'Healthcare Interventions', 'Child Protection Systems', 'Primary Care', 'Hospital-Based Care', 'Evidence-Based Methods', 'Maltreatment Prevention', 'Social Needs Screening', 'Social Risk Screening', 'Child Welfare I

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.