A 20 Year Review: Understanding the Exponential Increases in Child Protection Investigations for Exposure to IPV

Purpose:  To understand the reasons why exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) has become the most investigated and substantiated type of maltreatment in Ontario, Canada.  Although exposure to IPV is not explicitly included in the Ontario child welfare legislation, it has been increasingly interpreted as maltreatment in practice.

Background: Increases over the past 20 years in IPV reports to Ontario child protection agencies are likely the result of three factors: 1) changes to legislation, policy and assessment instruments; 2) increased awareness of the risks of exposure to IPV for children, and 3) referrals from professionals (e.g., police and schools).  Following mandatory charging policies that criminalized IPV in 1982 and numerous child death inquests in the 1990s, there has been a growing awareness of the impact of IPV on children.  The use of comprehensive risk assessments, first in 2000 with the Ontario Risk Assessment Model and then in 2006 with the Safety Assessment and Family Risk Assessment, as well as the revised Eligibility Tool (Ontario’s screening tool) and revised Child and Family Services Act, resulted in more families being screened for investigation.  Mandatory reporting regulations in police services also led to an increase in referrals stemming from domestic dispute calls.  Using data from 5 cycles of the Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (OIS) (1993, 1998, 2003, 2008, and 2013), this paper will examine the causes and consequences of the exponential increase in the incidence rates of IPV exposure between 1993 and 2013, providing important context.

Methods: The OIS is a cross sectional study of child welfare services that has been repeated every five years since 1993. The incidence of investigations where the primary concern identified by the investigating worker was IPV was derived and compared across cycles. Short term service dispositions were also compared across cycles using both incidence counts and proportions of investigations.

Results:  There was a nearly two fold increase in overall rates of investigations in Ontario between 1998 and 2003 followed by a period of stabilization. IPV is the only maltreatment type that continues to increase. In 2013, IPV was the form of maltreatment most investigated (13.32 per thousand children) and substantiated (8.72 per thousand children). Police referrals to child protection services due to concerns about IPV have increased in proportion to the overall increase of IPV (from a low of 1.37 investigations per 1000 children in 1998 to a high of 7.78 investigations per 1000 children). Conversely, the provision of ongoing child protection services has not increased in proportion to the overall increase of IPV investigations.  Rates of placement for IPV have not changed over time, remaining very low for investigations involving IPV (less than 1 per 1000 children for all cycles).