A Novel Method for Removing a Spinal Cord with Attached Cervical Ganglia from a Pediatric Decedent

A diagnosis of child abuse is dependent on a comprehensive and accurate assessment of injury in the context of a thorough investigation. However, signatures of trauma are often subtle and interpretation can be very difficult. Recently, researchers have refocused their attention from the head to the neck in search of traumatic signatures of abusive head trauma. HCIFS has developed a technique to remove the cervical spinal cord with the ganglia attached that is less destructive and more time and cost efficient than alternative methods previously published. Once removed, the dorsal nerve roots and ganglia are evaluated for the presence of hemorrhage. The authors performed a small pilot study using the novel method to evaluate 20 decedents with a history of blunt force trauma and eight without a traumatic history. Fifteen of the traumatic deaths and two of the nontraumatic deaths were found to have dorsal nerve root and/or ganglia hemorrhage.     

“Give me some space”: exploring youth to parent aggression and violence

A small scale qualitative project, undertaken by an interdisciplinary domestic violence research group involving academic researchers and research assistants, with colleagues from Independent Domestic Abuse Services (IDAS), investigated youth aggression and violence against parents. Following the literature review, data was generated through several research conversations with young people (n = 2), through semi-structured interviews with mothers (n = 3) and practitioners (n = 5), and through a practitioner focus group (n = 8). Thematic analysis and triangulation of the data from parents, practitioners and young people, elicited interconnected and complex overarching themes. Young people could be both victim and perpetrator. The witnessing or experiencing of domestic aggression and violence raised the concept of ‘bystander children’. The impact of young people experiencing familial violence was underestimated by parents. For practitioners, the effects of working with domestic violence was shown to be significant - both positively and negatively.