Custody Loss Among CPS-Involved Families with Intellectually Disabled Caregivers

Background and Purpose: Families with intellectually disabled caregivers (IDCs) are over-represented in the child welfare system; up to 10% of child maltreatment investigations and 20% of court cases involve families with IDCs.  These families experience poorer child welfare outcomes, including more prior CPS involvement and higher rates of substantiation, than families without IDCs.  Despite this, scant research has examined predictive factors associated with poor child welfare outcomes in these families.  The objective of this study was to begin to fill this gap by examining custody loss outcomes among CPS-involved families with IDCs.  Specifically, the following research questions were addressed:

Do rates of custody loss vary based on IDC status?

Does time to custody loss vary based on IDC status?

Do predictors of custody loss vary based on IDC status?

Methods:A secondary analysis of the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW) was undertaken to address the aforementioned research questions.  The NSCAW CPS sample was used, which involves 5,501 children and families who had a maltreatment investigation from October 1999 through December 2000.  Participants were randomly sampled from 97 counties across the US.  Instruments used in the NSCAW were chosen based on their ability to measure child, family, and environment factors associated with child maltreatment.  Information was collected from children, caregivers, CPS professionals, and teachers across 5 Waves.  Given that custody loss outcomes were measured at Wave 2, all analyses in this study were restricted to cases that had Wave 2 data. Chi-square tests, univariate general linear model procedures, and binomial logistic regression analyses were undertaken to examine associations and predictors of custody loss based on IDC status. 

Results: Approximately 25% of CPS-involved families with IDCs experienced custody loss, compared to 17% of CPS-involved families without IDCs.  This difference was not statistically significant.  An average of 117 days elapsed before the first custody loss occurred for families with IDCs, which is significantly shorter than the 178 days found for families without IDCs, t(71) = 2.14, p< .05.  Allegation substantiation (OR = 11.06), caregiver drug abuse (OR = 6.36), and caregiver maltreated as a child (OR = 5.04) were the strongest significant predictors of custody loss for families with IDCs.  Caregiver drug abuse (OR = 4.16), child age (OR = 0.87), and caregiver age (OR = 1.07) were the strongest significant predictors of custody loss for families without IDCs.

Conclusions and Implications: Although rates of custody loss did not vary based on IDC status, families with IDCs experienced custody loss approximately 2 months faster than families without IDCs, and predictive factors of custody loss varied by IDC status.  This suggests that prevention, screening, and intervention strategies for custody loss should consider variability of predictive factors based on IDC status.  These preliminary findings may help assist CPS professionals in working with families with IDCs and may result in improved prevention and screening efforts, and the formulation of evidence-based interventions.