Showing titles in Child Abuse

It was a day like any other, crystal blue sky and warm summer air, as young Nathan Spiteri walked into a change room at a familiar public swimming pool and would experience a turn of events that would change his innocent life forever. In this powerful, and vulnerable memoir, Spiteri writes about the trauma of being brutally abused, groomed and guided by the actions and lies of a vicious pedophile.

Officers from the RSPCA investigate reports of animal cruelty and neglect on a farm, only to discover a 5-year-old boy curled up asleep in a dog bed, amidst filth and squalor. He has severe physical and cognitive impairments, and no one outside the family seems to know of the existence of little Jacob. When he arrives in the Allen household, a terrified Louise wonders how on earth she will cope looking after a child with his level of physical and emotional damage. With the support of veteran social worker, Mary, the fight begins to get Jacob the support he needs.

In July 1965, teenagers Sylvia and Jenny Likens were left in the temporary care of Gertrude Baniszewski, a middle-aged single mother, and her seven children. The Baniszewski household was overrun with children. There were few rules and ample freedom. Sadly, the environment created a dangerous hierarchy of social Darwinism where the strong preyed on the weak. What transpired in the following three months was both riveting and chilling.

Just when Casey thinks her foster care duties are done, she’s asked to look after Sam, a troubled nine-year-old with a violent streak who drove his previous guardians to release him of their care. It soon unfolds, however, that this is no simple case. Determined to get to the root of Sam’s behaviour, Casey is committed to uncover his mysterious past only to find out something far darker than she ever imagined.

Male sexual abuse occurs far more commonly than previously suspected, yet too few victims ever seek support. Countless remain silent. They cope through avoidance, isolation, substance abuse, hyper-masculinity, etc. Men Too: Unspoken Truths About Male Sexual Abuse is for male survivors and their supporters. It is an educational, heart-wrenching look at 13 male sexual abuse victims experience, written from the perspective of a retired police officer and registered psychologist. Men Too highlights the complex and unique barriers boys and men face during and after abuse.

The Forgotten Children was David Hill's heartbreaking account of the abuse that he and other 'orphans of empire' survived at the Fairbridge Farm School in New South Wales. Part memoir, part oral history, the book became a best seller. It was also the catalyst in a subsequent battle for justice. In Reckoning, David recounts stories of the shocking systemic abuse at Fairbridge and how he led the fight against the powerful people and organisations.

Ward of the State: A Memoir of Foster Care tells what happened to a little Black boy from the inner city of Detroit. This is the story of Karlos Dillard, who was severely neglected by his mother, who often left him and his siblings at home alone for weeks to fend for themselves. Enduring severe neglect and abuse, the boy was removed by the State of Michigan and put into foster care. Karlos was removed from his mother's care just to end up in foster homes that treated him worse. Karlos was told he was not loved, he was not wanted, and he was nothing but a ward of the state.

Imagine waking up one day to discover that you have forgotten everything about your life. Your only link with the past, your only hope for the future, is your identical twin. Now imagine, years later, discovering that your twin had not told you the whole truth about your childhood, your family, and the forces that had shaped you. Why the secrets? Why the silences? You have no choice but to begin again. This has been Alex's reality: a world where memories are just the stories people tell you, where fact and fiction are impossible to distinguish.

A dramatic and remarkable narrative of an extraordinary teacher's determination, from the author of the Sunday Times bestsellers The Tiger's Child and One Child. Torey Hayden faced six emotionally troubled kids no other teacher could handle - three recent arrivals from battle-torn Northern Ireland, badly traumatized by the horrors of war; an eleven-year-old boy, who only knew life inside an institution; an excitable girl, aggressive and sexually precocious at the age of eight; and seven-year-old Leslie, perhaps the most hopeless of all, unresponsive and unable to speak.

Healing Honestly is a candid, poignant, and often funny survivor-to-survivor guide to navigating the salty waters of untrue stories and victim-blaming narratives that survivors of child sex abuse hear every day.

'One of the best books I've read this year. Just astounding.' - Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train. Law student Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, working on a retrial for death-row convicted murderer and child molester, Ricky Langley, finds herself thrust into the tangled story of his...

Hidden far from sight, deep in the thick underbrush of the North Florida woods are the ghostly graves of more than 30 unidentified bodies, some of which are thought to be children who were beaten to death at the old Florida Industrial School for Boys at Marianna. It is suspected that many more bodies will be found in the fields and swamplands surrounding the institution.

Shame is one of the most destructive of human emotions. If you suffered childhood physical or sexual abuse, you may experience such intense feelings of shame that it almost seems to define you as a person. In order to begin healing, it's important for you to know that it wasn't your fault. In this gentle guide, therapist and childhood abuse expert Beverly Engel presents a mindfulness and compassion-based therapeutic approach to help you overcome the debilitating shame that keeps you tied to the past.

Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy is one of the cruelest forms of child abuse imaginable. It is very difficult to prove and even harder to prosecute. This story chronicles a woman's journey as she discovers that her two grandchildren are victims of this abuse that most people have never even heard of. Her faith in God kept her going as she turned their tragedies and trials into triumph. Follow her journey of faith as she fights to rescue, protect, and bring healing to her grandchildren's broken spirits and shattered little souls.

Winner of the Betty Trask Award, Never Mind is the first in Edward St Aubyn's highly acclaimed Patrick Melrose novels, adapted for TV for Sky Atlantic and starring Benedict Cumberbatch. This audiobook is read aloud by stage and screen actor Alex Jennings. At his mother’s family house in the...

Emma Jane has lived a thousand colourful lives. She escaped a small town and a traumatic childhood by moving to Sydney, where she made an indelible imprint on the oppressively blokey mediascape. She played in an all-girl band, married a rock star she hardly knew, had a baby, ditched journalism for academia and changed her name from Emma Tom to Emma Jane. But all the while, she was struggling with her mental health. Then, during the first Sydney lockdown she was accidentally sectioned in a psychiatric ward.

Do you feel confused, frustrated, or empty after being around your mother? Are you riddled with self-doubt, unsure of how your mother really feels about you? Do you find her reactions to your achievements or accomplishments leave you feeling like a failure? Do you feel suppressed, controlled, and like rejection is a feeling you're constantly battling with?

When detective Maggie Oliver first discovered that children as young as 10 were being groomed, abused and trafficked for sex by gangs of men in the Rochdale area, she felt like a lonely voice calling for people to act. Banging on closed doors, it seemed that nobody was able or willing to help her save these vulnerable girls, but she couldn't just sit back while countless lives were being destroyed forever in plain sight. Instead, she launched a one-woman campaign to bring down these sickening gangs.

Faith Jones was raised to be part of an elite army preparing for the End Times. Isolated on a farm in Macau, she practised devotions and read letters of prophecy written by her grandfather, the leader of the now infamous cult The Children of God. A direct decedent of the founding family, Faith featured in international media coverage - she was celebrated as extraordinary and then published doubly as a sharp reminder that she was not. With indomitable grit, Faith created a world of her own, pilfering books and educating herself in secret.

Children of Coercive Control extends Evan Stark's path-breaking analysis of interpersonal violence to children, showing that coercive control is the most important cause and context of child abuse and child homicide outside a war zone, as well as of the sexual abuse, denigration, exploitation, isolation, and subordination of children. The book provides a working model of the coercive control of children and illustrates its dynamics and consequences with dramatic cases drawn from the headlines and Dr. Stark's forensic practice.