24 Christoffersen and DePanfilis Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Child Abuse Review Vol. 18: 24–40 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/car Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect and Improvements in Child Development The aim of the study was to evaluate the implementation of a section in the Danish Social Assistance Act which encourages local authorities to offer families services in order to support children at risk of child maltreatment. The specific purpose of the present paper is to answer the question: Will the socio-psychological development of children known to social services be improved when abuse and neglect are reduced? A sample of 1,138 children was drawn at random from new social services cases starting in 1998. Subsequently, about 80 per cent were evaluated by local caseworkers on the basis of a standardised questionnaire covering a period of four years. The most damaging family conditions seemed to be psychological maltreatment, physical/sexual abuse and neglect. Maltreated children were more often in a depressed state, unhappy, socially isolated, or they had an eating disorder, inadequate or under-nutrition, suicidal tendencies, lack of concentration, or disturbed behaviour, compared to those children who were not exposed to abuse and neglect. If parental behaviour improved, effects on children’s well-being were also observed and positive changes in children’s socio- psychological development were identified. The questionnaire explored the impact of various interventions, including services geared to strengthen the child’s network, but results indicated that the child displayed reduced risk of reactive symptoms only when parental behaviour improved and abuse and neglect were reduced. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. KEY WORDS: psychological maltreatment; physical abuse; neglect; unemployment; evaluation C hild maltreatment and the consequences of child maltreatment have been systematically studied for over half a century. Fifty years ago, Bowlby (1951) and Bakwin (1949) found evidence that children’s experiences of stress and adversity were followed by the development of various forms of somatic health problems or mental Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Accepted 6 November 2007 * Correspondence to: Mogens Nygaard Christoffersen, The Danish National Centre for Social Research, Herluff Trollesgade 11, DK-1052 Kobenhavn K, Denmark. E-mail: mc@sfi.dk Contract/grant sponsor: Ministry of Social Affairs, Denmark. Child Abuse Review Vol. 18: 24–40 (2009) Published online 8 January 2009 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) DOI: 10.1002/car.1029 Mogens Nygaard Christoffersen* The Danish National Centre for Social Research, Copenhagen, Denmark Diane DePanfilis School of Social Work, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, USA ‘Will the socio- psychological development of children known to social services be improved when abuse and neglect are reduced?’ ‘The questionnaire explored the impact of various interventions’