Child Abuse and Neglect: A Clinician’s Handbook

By Christopher J Hobbs, Helga G I Hanks and Jane M Wynne.
Harcourt Publishers
£69.95
ISBN 0 4430 5896 0

Physical Signs of Child Abuse: A Colour
Atlas

By Christopher J Hobbs and Jane M Wynne
Harcourt Publishers
£74.95
ISBN 0 7020 2582 8

The atlas contains pictures that challenge the efficacy of child
protection – battered, bruised and emaciated bodies, lacerated
genitalia and emotionally deprived expressions. The handbook sets
out the scope of the problem and how it might best be managed.

Together the books provide a comprehensive guide to the
assessment of clinical signs in a multi-disciplinary context. Hobbs
and Wynne continue their pioneering advocacy for abused children
that informed medical practice in Cleveland in 1987. They express
concerns about the growing numbers of abused children, continuing
denial and high evidential demands. They enable others to avoid the
pitfalls which they and the Cleveland professionals
encountered.

The atlas is intended for a medical audience. The handbook can
stand alone as a source of reference for a wider audience about the
history, cause, signs and symptoms and management of all forms of
abuse.

Sue Richardson is a psychotherapist, trainer and
co-author and co-editor of Creative Responses to Child Sexual
Abuse (Jessica Kingsley, 2001)