Dr. Gary Melton, director of the Clemson University Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life, spoke Nov. 24, in the Chesterfield Ceremonial Classroom as part of the Center on Children and Families speaker series.

Parents living without fear of asking for help, children living without fear of abuse, and neighbors readily offering open arms and helping hands are all vital to Dr. Gary Melton’s vision for the future of U.S. child protection policy.

Melton, director of the Clemson University Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life, visited the Levin College of Law on Nov. 24, to present to students and faculty, “What’s Wrong with Child Protection Policy…and How Can it be Fixed?,” advocating a movement away from investigations triggered by allegations of abuse and toward society-at-large taking a greater interest in the well-being of children and families rooted in their communities.

Using the Strong Communities program, funded by Clemson University and located in northwest South Carolina, which he spearheaded, as a model, Melton presented to his audience his composite vision for the future of child protection policy, then dissected it piece-by-piece to show how he arrived at his particular vision and why it just might work.

The end result, he claims, is “safer children and stronger communities.”

Under the current system, “the odds that a report to child protective services will result in anything positive are minuscule,” Melton explained. He said that the main problem with current U.S. child protection policy is that it is a system triggered by accusations, creating a backward system that offers little protection to children and no help to parents.

In his presentation, Melton cited some provocative statistics from his home state of South Carolina: about one in eight calls to child protective services are screened out, one-third of the remaining calls are officially substantiated, and only 40 percent of that third receive any services.

Melton added, “if they do get anything, it’s most likely a course in parenting, which has little to do with the reasons for the referral to begin with.”

Arguing against the public perception of perpetrators of child abuse as evil and monstrous, Melton argued that most cases involving neglect or emotional abuse indicate not depravity or illness on the parent’s part, but rather a deep and overwhelming need for support in childrearing, and instead of help, needy families are given an intrusive investigation.

Melton asserts that this trend is magnified by the “long-standing global increase in alienation, isolation and distrust,” which leads observers to report suspected neglect or abuse to local authorities instead of offering traditional, neighborly concern and support.

Calling his approach the “human rights approach,” which seeks to reaffirm the personhood of the child and the ability of the parent to succeed in raising the child, Melton hopes to effect a movement away from current U.S. child protection policy centered around accusations to a kinder, community-based approach centered around mutuality of respect and caring.

(Photo courtsey of Clemson University Institute of Family and Neighborhood Life)

The Center on Children & Families presents Dr. Gary Melton on “What’s Wrong with U.S. Child Protection Policy, and How Might It Be Fixed?” on Nov. 24, at noon in the Chesterfield Smith Ceremonial Classroom (HOL 180).

Gary B. Melton is director of the Institute of Family and Neighborhood Life and professor of psychology at Clemson University. A Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA) and 10 of its divisions, Melton is a past president of the American Orthopsychiatric Association, the American Psychology-Law Society, the APA Division of Child, Youth, and Family Services, and Childwatch International, a global research network sponsored by the Norwegian government.

Among other public and professional service, Melton has served as a member of the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, the U.S. Attorney General’s Expert Panel on Youth Violence, the APA Working Group on Child Abuse and Neglect, the APA Committee on International Relations in Psychology, the American Bar Association (ABA) Commission on Mental and Physical Disability Law, the ABA and APA working groups on the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Institute of Medicine committee on training of health professionals about family violence, the National Research Council panel on elder mistreatment, and the national and state boards of Parents Anonymous.

Melton has testified several times before the U.S. Congress, and he has served as a consultant to numerous state social service, mental health, legislative, and court-administrative agencies. As director of the Consortium on Children, Families, and the Law, a national network of policy research centers, he co-organized a long-standing Congressional briefing series. Prof. Melton’s work has been cited by U.S. courts at all levels, and he was the principal architect of the new national child protection strategy proposed by the U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect.

The author of approximately 300 publications, Prof. Melton has published or is currently writing or editing books on diverse topics of child and family policy and psychology, including child research; children’s law; pediatric AIDS; forensic mental health services; child advocacy; rural psychology; research ethics; children’s competence; the law’s effects on behavior; motivation in family relationships; use of social science research in legal reform; child mental health policy; child protection policy; and international developments in child and family policy. He has served on the editorial board of more than 25 journals and book series.

Melton has lectured, consulted, or conducted research in approximately 40 countries and territories abroad, and much of his work in recent years has focused on the application of international human rights law to child and family policy. He was a Fulbright professor at the Norwegian Center for Child Research.

Melton has held faculty appointments at the Universities of Hawaii, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Carolina, and Virginia and at Morehead (Kentucky) State University. He is currently a research fellow in the Centre for Psychology and Law at the University of the Free State in South Africa. (Biography courtesy of Clemson University Institute of Family and Neighborhood Life).