ABSTRACT
Increase the provisions of public data sets to facilitate important analyses of the nature, prevalence and consequences of child maltreatment and the effectiveness of efforts to protect children. Human service professionals must articulate their needs to agencies with a public mandate to collect data: US Bureau of the Census, National Center for Health Statistics. Any claim that insights gained from the results of this study will serve the purposes of child protection professionals must be tempered by an awareness that these findings explain only in retrospect. Prediction implies the explanation of future events. Unmarried women are given no respite from the strain associated with their sole responsibility both for nurturing and providing economically for their children. The media and the American public have been unsparing in their criticism of this country’s child protection system. But the prevalence of child maltreatment is after all an indictment of society.
