ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the various family case characteristics that can increase risk of child abuse and neglect. Child maltreatment risk factors include parent characteristics, child characteristics, and environmental characteristics. Parent characteristics include mental health, personality disorders, level of functioning, parenting attitudes, parenting stress, and parent history of child abuse and intimate partner violence. Child characteristics include developmental disorders, neurodevelopmental disorders, temperament, age, gender, and LGBTQ status. Environmental factors include financial stress, job loss, poverty, neighborhood distress, and lack of social support. It is also important to assess family protective factors. This chapter details how to evaluate risk and protective factors in context. Risk factors are more harmful when they accumulate but protective factors can decrease risk.
