IN his Agenda article (“Tackle the child abuse and neglect of today for a healthier tomorrow”, The Herald, April 27), Matt Forde calls for an increased level of research investment to understand better the causes as well as the consequences of child abuse and neglect if Scotland’s future generations are to be better protected. I agree wholeheartedly that matters of child development and child abuse need more of a funding focus, given the extent to which the early years lay the grounding for later psychological health. But I would hope that this does not involve yet more re-inventions of the wheel – to which research in child development and education is notoriously prone.

We have known about the causes of child abuse and its implications for decades, as child development textbooks readily demonstrate, but where the child-care system (construed widely) repeatedly fails children is in the lack of understanding of risk, and how to deal with it. The words “risk” and “risk evaluation” do not appear in Mr Forde’s article, although he does refer to “professionals not talking to each other, not putting the picture together and missing opportunities to act” – these often being the findings of formal, after-the-event inquiries following episodes of serious harm or child fatalities. In many situations where there is appropriate recognition of risk, there is a reluctance to act, or workers are paralysed by judicial systems, and children are left in dysfunctional and damaging family or care situations for months – or years. So in a real sense, the “causes” of child abuse are to be found not only in the specific relationship dynamics within families, or in difficult family circumstances, but also in the sense-making deficits and reluctance or inability to act too often found in professional teams. If there is to be “more research” required, perhaps that is where it needs to be focused.

Dr Angus Macmillan,

76 Georgetown Road, Dumfries.