Role of Inter-Professional Communication in Management of Child Abuse in Kenya: A Focus on Protective Intervention Strategies

Abstract

Child abuse remains a rampant and costly social problem worldwide; hence there is an urgent need to come up with suitable ways of addressing the problem. One of the traditional ways of addressing the issue of child abuse in Kenya and elsewhere entails communication by relevant professionals to disseminate information aimed at preventing and/or managing cases of child abuse. However, the extent to which the professional communication achieves this dissemination and management is not clear. This paper reports the results of a study that set out to investigates the role of communication between various professionals (inter-professional communication) in management of child abuse in Kenya. The study examined the nature of communication between various professionals involved in management of child abuse; the effects of the communication between the professionals on the management of child abuse and the challenges experienced by professionals in the communication of information on child abuse. It was conducted in Uasin Gishu County in Kenya with data generated from five groups of professionals: doctors, police officers, lawyers, social workers and children officers and analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results of this analysis revealed that the communication between the professionals involved several channels and media with varied levels of effectiveness; while information disseminated by the professionals was useful in solving problems of child abuse, there were several factors that constrained access to child abuse information.