Very tough beginning to this blog. Here is the segment I found pertinent to the discussion here so that you don't have to read the whole thing if you choose not to:
Jane Devin » Dangerous Choices: Children Placed in Harm’s Way
... Recent studies, however, are pointing towards the increased risk of child abuse and fatalities in homes shared with a stepparent or other unrelated adult. A 2005 Missouri study, published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, reports that children living with a stepparent or unrelated adult were 50 times more likely to die of inflicted injuries than children living with both of their parents.
Several studies spearheaded by the University of New Hampshire have shown that children living in stepfamilies or with single parents are at higher risk of physical or sexual assault than children living with two biological or adoptive parents.After twenty years of extensive research into child abuse in Canada, the United States and Great Britain, Canadian psychologists Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, reached the staggering conclusion in 1997 that stepparents were 100 times more likely to fatally abuse their children...
Colleen Spears, according to family members, was aware that her male friend Chris Collings had made advances against her teenage daughter. She married David Spears despite the fact that he was unemployed and had a drinking problem. Yet she left her daughter nine year old daughter Rowan in Spears’ care while she worked nights, just as she previously left her in the care of ex-boyfriend Adam Chichawoski, another chronic alcoholic who later committed suicide...
(Poor little Anthony Buhr is also discussed in the article.)
Another of her blog entries -
Jane Devin » Rowan Ford’s Murder & the MySpace Connection - there's a link at the end of this one for the social services reports on Rowan:
http://images.bimedia.net/documents/DSS+documents+on+contacts+with+Rowan+Ford.pdf
