While professionals and policy makers alike recognise neglect as a key type of abuse, there is not an agreed means of measuring neglect, whether in terms of its risk factors, incidence, or its impact on children. Consequently, and as an action of the Neglect Framework developed by Child Protection Committees Scotland’s Neglect Sub-Group, CPCScotland with support from CELCIS had developed and published ‘A Review of Scotland’s National Indicators Relating to Child Neglect.’  This paper aims to provide a means of measuring (and then monitoring) neglect at the population level in Scotland.

To accompany this paper the Chair of the CPCScotland Neglect Subgroup, Colin Anderson, has written a blog ‘Making Sense of Scotland’s Child Neglect Data’ where he discusses the key findings and sets us all a challenge to work harder at listening to the voices of children and families and find a way to translate voices into data which in turn influences policy and action.