Question

Scenario

Mary Ann, a thirty-two-year-old woman, lives in Clinton, Connecticut with her son, Tony, who is eight-years-old, and her boyfriend Jack. Mary Ann also takes care of her mother, Elma, who is elderly and lives with them in their home. Because Jack has trouble holding a job and rarely is employed for more than a few weeks at a time, Mary Ann works as a waitress during the day and as a bartender at night. It is common for her to be gone to work from 5:00 am to midnight. When Mary Ann is home, Jack is generally a decent fellow. He helps around the house, runs the occasional errand and watches a lot of TV.

However, when Mary Ann is at work, Jack behaves quite differently. He drinks most of the time and sits in front of the TV watching baseball. He doesn't care much for Tony or Elma, and he refuses to cook them food so they eat what they can find around the house. As a result, both are very thin and slightly malnourished. When Jack drinks a little too much and his favorite baseball team loses, he gets very angry. Dealing with an eight-year-old boy is the last thing he wants to do, so he sometimes locks Tony in the hall closet to punish him for misbehaving. On a several occasions, Jack has hit Tony when he is angry and Tony regularly has bruises on his arms and legs from the rough way that Jack handles him. Mary Ann notices the bruises, but Jack always explains that Tony is a boy and boys play rough, so the bruises are just from sports or kidding around. On a few occasions, Jack has also hit Elma, but he explains these marks to Mary Ann by saying that Elma is just old and ran into a wall or tripped and fell. He also regularly steals money from Elma’s purse, but Elma can never remember how much money she had so she never tells Mary Ann.

            Tony’s teacher, Miss McKay, has her suspicions that Tony is being abused, but Tony denies that there are any problems at home because he is afraid that his mom will get into trouble. Although Miss McKay is concerned, she decides that Tony is a good kid and she will believe him that there are no problems at home. When Tony is sent to the school nurse because he seems to have gotten very thin, the nurse gives him a cookie and tells him to eat all his meals like a good boy, then sends him back to class with a smile.

            One day, Elma is walking Tony to school, when she trips on a curb and falls down. A neighbor hurries out to help her up, and he notices the bruises on both Elma and Tony. He also notices that they both seem thin and pale. The neighbor asks Elma if everything is okay and Elma tells him about Jack. The neighbor then calls the police and reports the situation.  

Questions  

1) a) Identify any abusive situations in this home.

b) What type of abuse did occur or is occurring?

c) Who is responsible for the abuse?

2) a) Identify who, if anyone, had a responsibility to report an abusive situation in this case.

b) Did the individual(s) you identified in “2 a” meet that responsibility?

c) What information needed to be reported?

d) To whom should this information have been reported?

Answer 1

1.a) Abuse can be defined as any kind of misbehaviour or illtreatment by an individual or group to other.

The abusive situations in the above case can be seen at various times. These situations are as follows:

- Jack refusing to cook food and taking care of Elma and Tony.

- Jack closing Tony in hall closet

- Jack hitting Tony on many situations

- Jack hitting Elma

b) The type of abuse seen in this case is child abuse and elder abuse. The child abuse victim is Tony and elder abuse victim is Elma.

c) The abuser is Jack. He is supposed to take good for Tony and Elma. But he is constantly ill-treating both of them through mental and physical violence.

2. a) The people responsible for reporting abusive situation are:

- Tony’s teacher Miss Mckay: she has seen the bruises and deteriorating health of Tony and is suspicious about the abuse.

- school nurse

- The neighbour: Elma describes the abusive situation to neughbour.

b) Tony’s teacher and the school nurse did not report the abuse. They did not took the matter seriously. They should have made Tony comfortable and asked for any kind of problems he is facing at home in a polite and humble manner.

The neighbour reported the abuse as soon as he got to know about it from Elma

c) The information needed to be reported was presence of bruises on both Elma and Tony that were indicative of physical violence.

The malnourished condition and poor health of Tony and Elma should also be reported which is indicative of physical and mental abuse.

d) The information should have been reported to following:

- Mary Ann who is guardian to Tony and Elma

- State police agency

- protective services: there are many protective services in the community for elders and child to protect them from abusive situations

- Childline : childline help protect children from abuse.