Introduction of Child Maltreatment Fatality Review to the Korean Child Protective System

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to 1)examine child maltreatment(CM) fatality review systems, a kind of child death review(CDR) relating to child maltreatment, in foreign countries, 2)inform lessons learned from foreign cases to the impending Korean CM fatality system, and 3)support establishment and implementation of the Korean system. For this, we selected five countries: the US (Texas), England, Scotland, Japan, and Taiwan. We examined the characteristics of CM fatality review systems of the five countries in the areas of planning, implementation, and outcomes based on the framework derived from ‘Quality Marker’. The findings suggest the following for the introduction of the Korean CM fatality review system. First, the central government needs to initiate and take the responsibility for CM fatality review at the early stage and then involve local governments to establish a two-tier system. Second, the CM fatality review system needs to be expanded to cover all child deaths. Third, the goal of the CM fatality review needs to be in the improvement of the child protective system and the environment surrounding children and families. Fourth, the legal groundwork needs to be established concerning CM fatality review procedure, parallel process with other reviews, and release of the CM fatality review report.