ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the little that is known about maltreatment in adoptive families and follows up with information on maltreatment in biological families and foster care to provide context. Previously adopted children (PAC) are those currently in the foster care system who have experienced an adoption, such as children who have had disrupted adoptions who have been placed in foster care, as well as children removed from adoptive homes into foster care. J. A. K. Matthews work on PAC in care also explores how the family’s status as an adoptive family affects recognized issues in the reporting, investigation, and assessment of maltreatment. A number of studies describe the former and current experience of maltreatment in foster care living situations, which, as the other type of family in which children live with non-biological parents, is the most comparable situation to adoptive children.
