Abstract This study aims to explore parents’ lived experiences of receiving child neglect allegations and how they make sense of these experiences. The sample consists of parents who participated in a family preservation program following allegations of child neglect. Semi-structured interviews were conducted and analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The findings suggest that parents resist neglect allegations, both by denial and minimization, partly due to their lack of clear understanding of what constitutes child neglect. Further, parents in this study tended to be reactive to meanings ascribed to the label of child neglect rather than the allegations per se. They seemed to experience internal conflict between their positive evaluations of their own parenting and what their neglect allegations might imply about their parenting. Parents also experienced emotional distress, such as concern about social stigma and fear of losing their parental rights, as they tried to make sense of their current situations. Suggested implications for practice include exploring parents’ subjective understanding of their allegations and considering their unique familial and sociocultural contexts from the outset of their involvement with child protective services (CPS) in order to build a collaborative working alliance.

中文翻译：

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“我的孩子们，他们很安全。”：父母收到忽视儿童指控的亲身经历

摘要 本研究旨在探讨父母接受儿童忽视指控的生活经历以及他们如何理解这些经历。样本包括在被指控忽视儿童后参与家庭保护计划的父母。使用解释性现象学分析 (IPA) 进行和分析了半结构化访谈。调查结果表明，父母通过否认和最小化来抵制忽视指控，部分原因是他们对儿童忽视的构成缺乏清晰的理解。此外，这项研究中的父母倾向于对归于忽视儿童标签的含义而不是指控本身做出反应。他们似乎在对自己养育子女的积极评价与忽视指控可能暗示的养育子女之间存在内在冲突。父母也经历了情绪困扰，例如担心社会污名和害怕失去父母权利，因为他们试图了解自己目前的情况。建议对实践的影响包括探索父母对其指控的主观理解，并从他们参与儿童保护服务 (CPS) 一开始就考虑他们独特的家庭和社会文化背景，以建立协作工作联盟。