Parental levels of empathy as related to risk assessment in child protective services

Much attention has been paid to empathy as a concept necessary to the therapeutic relationship and successful outcome with clients. Less attention has been paid to the importance of empathy in the parent-child relationship. Even less attention has been paid to empathy as it relates to the presence or absence of child abuse in the parent-child relationship. While early literature on child abuse eluded to the parents' ability or inability to empathize with the child, recent emphasis on risk assessment and studies of variables used as factors to predict risk of abuse do not include parental empathy. Research presented in this article suggests that a complete assessment of risk of child physical abuse must include a measure of parental empathy. The article also suggests that a measure of parental empathy be added to each of the risk assessment tools used by child protective service specialists.