Sunday, 16 January 2005 - 10:30 AM

This presentation is part of: Findings from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW): Applying Innovative Methods to Understanding Services and Outcomes for Maltreated Children

Safety of Children in Child Welfare Services: Analysis of Reported and Undetected Maltreatment over 18-Months

The safety of children is the paramount goal of child welfare services (CWS). While official re-reports of maltreatment are an important indicator of children’s safety, they are a limited measure of the totality of the child’s experiences. NSCAW data allow for the unique analysis of other broader measures of safety, including child report of victimization. Using data from a national probability sample of children investigated for child maltreatment (N = 4,766), this paper examines children’s safety from both officially reported and undetected maltreatment over the first year-and-one-half.

A fifth (21%) of all children experienced an official re-report in the 18 months following the initial investigation of maltreatment. Strikingly, the proportion of children with recurrent, reported maltreatment was similar for children remaining in the home (20%) and children living in an out of home placement setting (24%). Although, the rate of subsequent maltreatment reports for children living out of home was substantially reduced to 3% when the analysis was limited to reports identifying the foster parent or group care provider as the perpetrator, the overall rate suggests that children removed from the home are experiencing high levels of maltreatment.

Family risks associated with ongoing maltreatment were examined. Previous studies have shown that family risks are significantly associated with re-report of child maltreatment and findings from NSCAW were consistent with this. For instance, a significantly higher proportion of families with a caregiver having a childhood history of abuse and neglect were re-reported (33%) than those without these childhood experiences (20%). In addition, a proportion of children experienced multiple re-reports by the 18-month interview and characteristics of these families will be presented.

Asking children about their family experiences provides additional information to broaden our understanding of children’s safety. The parent child version of the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS-PC) was used to measure child report of parent disciplinary tactics. Overall, the level of severe violence reported by children 11 and older significantly decreased in families without subsequent maltreatment reports (p < .001). Although children placed into out of home care typically had much higher baseline scores on the severe violence subscale of the CTS-PC (M = 12.8, SE = 5.4) than children who remained in home (M = 1.9, SE = .37), this group experienced the largest significant reduction in undetected maltreatment (p < .05). Factors associated with increased safety will be examined in order to provide information that will help child welfare agencies to better protect children against re-abuse. Children who are repeatedly re-abused over 18 months will be distinguished from those who are not repeatedly abused and those who are re-reported to CWS. Implications for child welfare policy and practice will be discussed.

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