Neglect is the failure of a parent or other caregiver to provide for a child’s basic needs. Neglect generally includes the following categories:
- Physical (e.g., failure to provide necessary food or shelter, lack of appropriate supervision)
- Medical (e.g., failure to provide necessary medical or mental health treatment, withholding medically indicated treatment from children with life-threatening conditions)*
- Educational (e.g., failure to educate a child or attend to special education needs)
- Emotional (e.g., inattention to a child’s emotional needs, failure to provide psychological care, permitting a child to use alcohol or other drugs)
Sometimes cultural values, the standards of care in the community, and poverty may contribute to what is perceived as maltreatment, indicating the family may need information or assistance. It is important to note that living in poverty is not considered child abuse or neglect. However, a family’s failure to use available information and resources to care for their child may put the child’s health or safety at risk, and child welfare intervention could be required. In addition, many States provide an exceptionto the definition of neglect for parents who choose not to seek medical care for their children due to religious beliefs.**
*Although it can apply to children of any age, withholding of medically indicated treatment is a form of medical neglect that is defined by CAPTA as “the failure to respond to…life-threatening conditions by providing treatment (including appropriate nutrition, hydration, and medication) which, in the treating physician’s or physicians’ reasonable medical judgment, will be most likely to be effective in ameliorating or correcting all such conditions…” CAPTA does note a few exceptions, including infants who are “chronically and irreversibly comatose,” situations when providing treatment would not save the infant’s life but merely prolong dying, or when “the provision of such treatment would be virtually futile in terms of the survival of the infant and the treatment itself under such circumstances would be inhumane.”
** The CAPTA amendments of 1996 (42 U.S.C. § 5106i) added new provisions specifying that nothing in the act be construed as establishing a Federal requirement that a parent or legal guardian provide any medical service or treatment that is against the religious beliefs of the parent or legal guardian.