Understanding the Role of Forensic Nurses in Child Abuse and Neglect: A Comprehensive Overview

Running head: ROLE OF THE FORENSIC NURSES
ROLE OF THE FORENSIC NURSES
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ROLE OF THE FORENSIC NURSES
Challenges faced by the forensic nurses in child abuse and neglect
Nurses working in the forensic department plays a crucial role in the detailed assessment of
children who had been the victims of neglect and child abuse. In order to impart justice to the
victims, the forensic nurses should not only possess excellent assessment skills but should also
be knowledgeable to the legal obligations of the nurses related to child abuse (Alsaif et al.,
2015). It the foremost responsibility of the forensic nurses to provide both physical as well as
emotional support to the victims, who had been suffering from both physical and emotional
trauma. A forensic nurse is entitled for the documentation of the findings, perform the physical
assessment, collection of the specimens like blood, skin or urine or other sample from the site of
the crime or the body of the patient. Conduction of the health promotion program is also another
role played by the forensic nurses.
Community setting
The vulnerable group of population are the children, the elderly people, women and those wwith
disability. They are susceptible to any kind of breaching of the rights.
Prompt identification of the harms and mandatory reporting to the authorities is one of
the prime tasks performed by the forensic nurses. It should be mentioned that children who had
been the victims of child abuse might suffer from both physical and emotional turmoil, hence
forensic nurse also provides psychosocial support or counsel the young patients (Lane ,2014).

ROLE OF THE FORENSIC NURSES
Parent education has been found to be one of the important part in health promotion
programs related to child abuse and neglect. Forensic nurses are entitled to educate the parents
about the identifiers of child abuse and neglect. Again nurses are liable to take a through
assessment of the history of the patient and should be able to concentrate on the several facets of
child abuse and neglect like the assessment of the appearance and the behaviour of the child,
interaction with other children (Lane, 2014).
Health promotion nursing intervention
Nurses consist of that groups of people who often have to work in close contact with
children who had suffered from violence and trauma. There is both legal and ethical obligation of
the nurses to intervene. As stated by Lane (2014), several strategies are taken up by the nurses in
response to child abuse. Nurses often make home visits for preventing abuse in the post natal
period, especially in those families, where there had been previous reports of child abuse and
violence. They are also likely to families associated with maternal age and poverty. Hence one of
the health advancement intervention is to inform the parents and the child, who is being abused,
regarding the symptoms of abuse and also inform them about any community services that has
to be contacted in case of any incidence of child abuse (Hornor et al., 2012). Child maltreatment
by the family members and often by the educational instructors are also common in certain
households. The occurrence of the child maltreatment will be controlled to a greater extent by the
health promotion interventions. The structural educational interventions has aimed to reduce the
risk of the child maltreatment by educating the new parents. According to (), parents play an
important role in preventing child sexual abuse. It is necessary to educate the parents that about
the 95 % of the child sexual abuse are done by the close family members and in many of the