Decision-Making in Child Protective Services: Influences at Multiple Levels of the Social Ecology
Significant variation exists in child maltreatment substantiations and out-of-home care placements across states, municipalities, and agencies. Some of this variation can be explained by differences in the demographic characteristics of geographic regions, including, concentration of different racial minorities, population size, and poverty. However, varying substantiation and out-of-home care rates may also be influenced by differential policies, practices, and resources available to agencies. While these factors have received little attention to date, the organizational context warrants consideration as federal and state governments exercise explicit control over the policies of child welfare systems. This study sought to identify the way in which agencies resource, time, and decision making constraints influence substantiation and out-of-home care decisions, net of family risk factors and county characteristics.
Methods:
This study uses the second cohort of the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being and focuses on two dependent variables –substantiation and removal to out of home care.
We use hierarchical linear modeling to address clustering at multiple levels, and to assess the contribution of agency level variables, community characteristics, and child and family factors. Agency level variables include time constraints (e.g. timelines, caseload size), resources (e.g. service availability and accessibility, staffing) and decision-making constraints (e.g. consent decrees, use of standardized assessments and structural decision-making). County level variables include population density, child poverty, crime, and ethnic heterogeneity. An array of family and child risk factors and demographics are also included.
Results:
Among the agency factors, decision-making constraints were the most important block of predictors for substantiation. Specifically, structural decision-making predicts a lower probability of substantiation, and higher use of standardized assessment tools predicts higher substantiaion risk. However, service availability also predicted a lower risk of substantiation. County characteristics appear to not influence substantiation decisions.
Regarding out-of-home placement, agency resources were the most important for predicting removal. Specifically, higher service availability predicts a lower probaiblity of removal and an agency having lost 25 percent or more of its funding in the past 12 months is associated with an increase in the probability of removal. For decision-making constraints, use of a structured decision making model was marginally associated with higher probability of removal. In terms of county characteristics, percent of black residents was negatively associated with removal, while high arrest rate predicted a marginally higher probabiblity of removal.
Conclusions and Implications:
The current study finds statistically significant associations between many CPS organizational context variables and decisions to substantiate maltreatment or remove children, suggesting an important role of policy decisions affecting outcomes for children. Specifically, higher levels of service availability was associated with a lower risk of substantiation and out of home care placement, suggesting that social workers may be more lenient in their decisions when there are other services available to refer families. Additionally, significant cuts to child welfare funding are associated with increased rates of removal, suggesting that workers may have to be more restrictive in their decisions when facing resource limitations.