Hendrika B. Cantwell

Last updated
Hendrika B. Cantwell
Born
Hendrika Bestebreurtje

(1925-05-03) May 3, 1925 (age 98)
Berlin, Germany
CitizenshipAmerican
Education
Known for Advocate for abused and neglected children

Hendrika Bestebreurtje Cantwell (born May 3, 1925) is a German-born American retired physician, professor emerita of pediatrics at the University of Colorado Denver, advocate for abused and neglected children, and parenting educator. She was one of the first physicians in the United States to work for a child protection agency, serving with the Denver Department of Social Services from 1975 to 1989. Her work there brought her in contact with an estimated 30,000 cases of suspected child abuse and she testified as an expert witness in thousands of court cases. An author of peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and teaching manuals on the detection and treatment of child abuse, she has also conducted workshops and training programs for professionals throughout Colorado. She was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1990.

Contents

Early life and education

Bestebreurtje was born on May 3, 1925, in Berlin, Germany, to Dutch nationals; her father had been transferred by his firm to Berlin before her birth. [1] She was the youngest of four children. At age 6 she moved with her family to Zürich, Switzerland. In November 1940 the family fled wartime Europe by traveling to the neutral port of Lisbon, Portugal. They booked passage on a Portuguese ship built to hold 300, which departed with 1,000 passengers and arrived in New York City in April 1941. Two years later Hendrika attained U.S. citizenship. [1]

She earned her B.A. from Barnard College in 1944 at the age of 19, [2] [3] and enrolled at the University of Rochester Medical School, planning to specialize in pediatrics. [1] After receiving her medical degree in 1949, [2] she interned at Buffalo Children's Hospital. Following her internship, in 1952 she and her husband William Cantwell relocated to Denver, Colorado, attracted by the nearby skiing opportunities. [4]

Career

In 1954 Cantwell became a part-time physician for school immunization programs and well-baby clinics in Denver. From 1966 to 1975 she was a full-time staffer of Project Child, a neighborhood health program for low-income children. [2] She also began teaching nursing students, medical students, pediatric residents, and pediatric nurse practitioners. [4] She joined the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center as a clinical professor of pediatrics. [4]

Cantwell became one of the first physicians in the country to work for a child protection agency when she was hired by the Denver Department of Social Services (DDSS) in 1975. [4] Her hiring grew out of the 1973 death of a child whose case, it was alleged, had been mishandled by the department. Under Cantwell's direction, the DDSS opened a Family Crisis Center on its premises, to which parents could bring children suspected of being abused for interviews with physicians and social workers. If abuse was determined, the child could be kept at the facility and a juvenile court case would be opened within 48 hours. Up to 40 percent of girls questioned at the center admitted to having been sexually abused, and 98 percent of children under age 7 had been abused by family members or friends. [5]

Concomitant with the establishment of the Family Crisis Center, more and more child abuse cases were filed in court. As Cantwell interviewed abusive parents, she realized that many were unaware of the reasons for their behavior. She said in an interview:

No one had listened to these parents. Most had been abused. ... They felt singled out by drunken fathers. It's normal to take our perceptions of child-rearing from our parents. It was amazing that they didn't realize how mistreated they were. Instead, they blamed themselves for being rotten kids. Schools had punished them for inattention, fighting, failing to do their work. But no one asked why they did poorly. Most painful was their recurring question, "Where were you when I needed protection?" [6]

As many parents were considered unsuitable candidates for treatment due to dysfunctional upbringing, alcohol and drug addictions, and mental incapacity, DDSS social workers proposed that they be given parenting classes. Cantwell wrote a curriculum for court-ordered parenting education in 1975. These classes were led by teachers at the Emily Griffith Opportunity School for the next decade. [7]

In her 14 years of work with the DDSS, Cantwell came in contact with an estimated 30,000 cases of suspected child abuse and neglect. [8] She often served as an expert witness, with an estimated 95 percent of her court appearances coming on behalf of the prosecution. [9] Her 1983 study of normal hymenal openings in young girls, published in Child Abuse & Neglect , was often cited as a determinant of whether sexual penetration had taken place. [10] [11]

Cantwell retired from the DDSS in August 1989. [8] Thereafter she worked as a part-time consultant on child abuse and neglect for the Colorado State Department of Social Services, and continued to train nursing students, child advocates, and case workers to identify and assist child abuse victims. [8] She conducted workshops throughout the state for "social workers, school employees, police officers, attorneys, doctors, public health and clinic nurses, judges, county officials, foster parents, and the general public". [8] She published her research in peer-reviewed journals, book chapters, and teaching manuals. [8] In 1996 she and her husband formally retired and moved to Driggs, Idaho, near the ski slopes of the Teton Range. [12]

Awards and honors

Cantwell was honored with two proclamations of "Dr. Hendrika Cantwell Day", in 1983 by Governor of Colorado Richard Lamm and in 1989 by Mayor of Denver Federico Peña. [12] The Colorado Bar Association established a Hendrika B. Cantwell Annual Award in 1983. Cantwell was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1990 and was the recipient of the C. Henry Kempe Award in 1991. [12]

She was the subject of the television documentary Dr. Hendrika Cantwell, produced by the British Film Institute and aired on July 28, 1988, by BBC One. [13] [14]

Personal life

She met her husband, William P. Cantwell (1921–2003), a law student, while skiing at Lake Placid, New York, in 1945. [15] [16] They married in 1947 [16] and had two sons and a daughter. [4] [15] William established his first legal practice in Buffalo, New York, while Hendrika interned in the Buffalo Children's Hospital. He practiced estate law for many years in Denver and was a past president of the Denver Bar Association, the Colorado Bar Association, and the American College of Probate Counsel. [15]

Selected bibliography

Book chapters

Articles and papers

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Physical abuse</span> Medical condition

Physical abuse is any intentional act causing injury, trauma, bodily harm or other physical suffering to another person or animal by way of bodily contact. Physical abuse is a type of abuse that involves physical violence, such as hitting, kicking, pushing, biting, choking, throwing objects, and using weapons. Physical abuse also includes using restraints or confinement, such as tying someone up, locking them in a room, or restraining them with drugs or alcohol. Physical abuse can also include withholding basic needs, such as food, clothing, or medical care. In addition to the physical injuries caused by physical abuse, it can also lead to psychological trauma, such as fear, anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Physical abuse can occur in any relationship, including those between family members, partners, and caregivers. It can also occur in institutional settings, such as nursing homes, schools, and prisons. Physical abuse can have long-term physical, psychological, and social consequences, and can even be fatal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">McMartin preschool trial</span> Day care sexual abuse case in the 1980s that overlapped with the Satanic ritual abuse panic

The McMartin preschool trial was a day care sexual abuse case in the 1980s, prosecuted by the Los Angeles District Attorney Ira Reiner. Members of the McMartin family, who operated a preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, were charged with hundreds of acts of sexual abuse of children in their care. Accusations were made in 1983; nevertheless arrests and the pretrial investigation took place from 1984 to 1987, and trials ran from 1987 to 1990. The case lasted seven years but resulted in no convictions, and all charges were dropped in 1990. By the case's end, it had become the longest and most expensive series of criminal trials in American history. The case was part of day-care sex-abuse hysteria, a moral panic over alleged Satanic ritual abuse in the 1980s and early 1990s.

A form of child abuse, child neglect is an act of caregivers that results in depriving a child of their basic needs, such as the failure to provide adequate supervision, health care, clothing, or housing, as well as other physical, emotional, social, educational, and safety needs. All societies have established that there are necessary behaviours a caregiver must provide for a child to develop physically, socially, and emotionally. Causes of neglect may result from several parenting problems including mental disorders, unplanned pregnancy, substance use disorder, unemployment, over employment, domestic violence, and, in special cases, poverty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Child abuse</span> Maltreatment or neglect of a child

Child abuse is physical, sexual, and/or psychological maltreatment or neglect of a child or children, especially by a parent or a caregiver. Child abuse may include any act or failure to act by a parent or a caregiver that results in actual or potential harm to a child and can occur in a child's home, or in the organizations, schools, or communities the child interacts with.

Factitious disorder imposed on another (FDIA), also known as fabricated or induced illness by carers (FII), and first named as Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSbP), is a condition in which a caregiver creates the appearance of health problems in another person, typically their child. This may include injuring the child or altering test samples. The caregiver then presents the person as being sick or injured. Permanent injury or death of the victim may occur as a result of the disorder. The behaviour occurs without a specific benefit to the caregiver.

Sibling abuse includes the physical, psychological, or sexual abuse of one sibling by another. More often than not, the younger sibling is abused by the older sibling. Sibling abuse is the most common of family violence in the US, but the least reported. As opposed to sibling rivalry, sibling abuse is characterized by the one-sided treatment of one sibling to another.

Child sexual abuse (CSA), also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include engaging in sexual activities with a child, indecent exposure, child grooming, and child sexual exploitation, such as using a child to produce child pornography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sibling relationship</span> Relationship between siblings

Siblings play a unique role in one another's lives that simulates the companionship of parents as well as the influence and assistance of friends. Because siblings often grow up in the same household, they have a large amount of exposure to one another, like other members of the immediate family. However, though a sibling relationship can have both hierarchical and reciprocal elements, this relationship tends to be more egalitarian and symmetrical than with family members of other generations. Furthermore, sibling relationships often reflect the overall condition of cohesiveness within a family.

Institutional abuse is the maltreatment of a person from a system of power. This can range from acts similar to home-based child abuse, such as neglect, physical and sexual abuse, and hunger, to the effects of assistance programs working below acceptable service standards, or relying on harsh or unfair ways to modify behavior. Institutional abuse occurs within emergency care facilities such as foster homes, group homes, kinship care homes, and pre-adoptive homes. Children who are placed in this type of out of home care are typically in the custody of the state. The maltreatment is usually caused by an employee of the facility.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coin-operated-locker babies</span> Aspect of child abuse in Japan

Coin-operated-locker babies or coin-locker babies (Japanese: コインロッカーベイビー, romanized: koinrokkābeibī, lit. 'coin locker baby' are victims of child abuse often occurring in Japan, in which infants are left in public lockers. There are two main variables that account for the differences in frequency and the type of these child abuse cases: social and economical. Predominantly neonates and male babies, the murder of infants became a form of population control in Japan, being discovered 1–3 months after death, wrapped in plastic and appearing to have died of asphyxiation. The presumption is that such lockers are regularly checked by attendants and the infant will be found quickly; however, many children are found dead. Between 1980 and 1990, there were 191 reported cases of infants which died in coin-operated lockers, which represents about six percent of all infanticides during that period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Children's Healthcare is a Legal Duty</span> American nonprofit organization

Children's Healthcare Is a Legal Duty (CHILD) was from 1983 to 2017 an American nonprofit membership organization that worked to stop child abuse and neglect based on religious beliefs, cultural traditions, and quackery. CHILD opposed religious exemptions from child health and safety laws. These exemptions have been used as a defense in criminal cases when parents have withheld lifesaving medical care on religious grounds. These exemptions also have discouraged reporting and investigation of religion-based medical neglect of children and spawned many outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases and deaths. CHILD publicized the ideological abuse and neglect of children, lobbied for equal protection laws for children, and filed lawsuits and amicus curiae briefs in related cases.

Frances Mary McConnell-Mills was an American toxicologist. She was the first woman to be appointed Denver's city toxicologist, the first female toxicologist in the Rocky Mountains, and probably the first female forensic pathologist in the United States.

Eliana Gil, is a lecturer, writer, and clinician of marriage, family and child. She is on the board of a number of professional counselling organizations that use play and art therapies, and she is the former president of the Association for Play Therapy (APT).

Freda Briggs was an Australian academic, author and child protection advocate. In 2000, she was named Senior Australian of the Year for her pioneering work in child protection.

Elnora M. Gilfoyle is a retired American occupational therapist, researcher, educator, and university administrator. She worked at several hospitals before accepting a professorship at Colorado State University, later serving as Dean of the College of Applied Human Sciences and Provost/Academic Vice President at that university. She is also a past president of the American Occupational Therapy Association. With research interests in child development, developmental disabilities, and child abuse, she has led studies on the state and federal levels. The co-author of two books and many articles, she was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1996.

Barbara L. Bonner is a clinical psychologist and expert on juvenile sex offenders. She is known for her research on the assessment and treatment of abused children, prevention of child fatalities due to neglect, and treatment of children and adolescents with problematic sexual behavior. Bonner is the CMRI/Jean Gumerson Endowed Chair and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Oklahoma College of Medicine. She serves as the Director of the Child Abuse and Neglect at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center.

Sumiko Tanaka Hennessy is an American social worker, trauma therapist, academic, and activist for the Asian-American community in Denver, Colorado. Born in Yokohama, Japan, she earned her Master of Social Work degree at Fordham Graduate School of Social Service and her doctorate at the University of Denver. She was a founding board member and later executive director of the Asian Pacific Development Center, which provides mental health services, counseling, education, and youth activities for the Asian immigrant community in the Denver metropolitan area. In 2000 she helped inaugurate the Tokyo University of Social Welfare and is presently a professor emeritus of that institution. In 2004 she and her husband founded Crossroads for Social Work, LLC, a training program for mental health professionals in Japan and the United States. The recipient of numerous awards, she was inducted into the Colorado Women's Hall of Fame in 1989.

Prasanna Nair is an Indian-born doctor working in the United States. She works in primary health care with a specialty in pediatric endocrinology

Donald N. Duquette is an American child advocate, clinical law professor, author, and academic. He is a Clinical Professor of Law Emeritus and the Founding Director Emeritus of the Child Advocacy Law Clinic at the University of Michigan Law School. He is most known for his contributions to the area of child advocacy and child welfare and has been a recipient of numerous awards, including the Michigan Governor's Task Force on Children's Justice Ernie Moore Justice for Children Award and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Counsel for Children.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Varnell 1999, p. 211.
  2. 1 2 3 "Champion of Abused Children". Barnard Alumnae. 67 (1): 44. Fall 1977. Retrieved 13 July 2017.
  3. ↑ "Hendrika Bestebreurtje Cantwell, MD". Colorado Women's Hall of Fame. 2017. Retrieved 13 July 2017.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Varnell 1999, p. 212.
  5. ↑ Varnell 1999, pp. 212–213.
  6. ↑ Varnell 1999, pp. 214–215.
  7. ↑ Varnell 1999, p. 214.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 Varnell 1999, p. 215.
  9. ↑ Sweet, Lynn (28 March 1989). "Fabiano witness doubts injury report on girl". Chicago Sun-Times . Archived from the original on 19 November 2018. Retrieved 13 July 2017.
  10. ↑ Grunseit, Ferry (2008). "Child Sexual Assault – Are There Alternatives to Court Action?" (PDF). Australian Institute of Criminology. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-02-12. Retrieved 13 July 2017.
  11. ↑ Nathan & Snedeker 2001, p. 187.
  12. 1 2 3 Varnell 1999, p. 216.
  13. ↑ "Dr. Hendrika Cantwell (1988)". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on January 29, 2023. Retrieved 13 July 2017.
  14. ↑ "Esther Interviews…". BBC. 2017. Retrieved 13 July 2017.
  15. 1 2 3 Kaiser, Libby (26 June 2003). "Longtime Local Lawyer William Cantwell Noted Nationally for High Ethics". Rocky Mountain News . Archived from the original on 16 November 2018. Retrieved 13 July 2017.
  16. 1 2 "William P. Cantwell". Colorado Lawyer. 32: 112. 2003.

Sources

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