어린이집과 유치원 아동학대 현황과 놀이치료사의 인식 연구

This research aims to examine the circumstances of child abuse in childcare centers and kindergartens. Furthermore, it aims to discover the recognition of play therapists on the issue. Therefore, the literature on child abuse from 2015 to 2021 was analyzed, and data from three play therapists who had experience with child abuse victims were collected through focus group interviews. First, the results demonstrated that kindergarten teachers made more reports of possible child abuse than childcare center teachers. Play therapists identified improvements in teachers’ awareness of child abuse, reliability of children’s statements, and certainty of symptoms of abuse by parents. Second, from 2015 to 2017, more cases were reported for kindergartens than for childcare centers; however, from 2019 to 2021, the opposite was true. Play therapists identified the effects of mass media and CCTV. Third, play therapists reported that while alertness for child abuse by society and parents had increased, child abuse in child educational institutions temporarily decreased because of social circumstances in 2018 and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Fourth, play therapists were worried that parents’ careless misinterpretation could be problematic, because reports of possible emotional abuse, rather than physical abuse, were increasing. Play therapists expected that the number of abuse cases would increase in children’s educational institutions. The results of this study suggest the need for arbitration institutions and more parental support in relation to child abuse in childcare centers and kindergartens.