Parents with Disabilities in the Child Welfare System: Equity and Justice Implications

Background: While internationally there is growing attention to the disparate treatment of parents with disabilities in child welfare, there is no national data in the United States about their prevalence in cases reported to child welfare. Previous research has shown that at least 19% of children in the United States foster care system have a parent with a disability, however there is no data regarding the types of disabilities of the parents, or their involvement in child welfare services prior to foster care placements. The National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS), the federal reporting system that collects case level data on all reports to child protective services, includes information on parent disability status. The purpose of this study is to explore the prevalence of parents with disabilities among cases reported to the child welfare system, as well as the prevalence of maltreatment substantiation, additional risk factors and receipt of various types of child welfare services.

Methods: This study uses administrative data from the 2014 NCANDS Child File data. As there is great variation in the data collected across states, including many states not recording information on parents with disabilities at all, this study is limited to the 13 states that had a low percentage of missing data in the parental disability variables. Logistic regression was used to explore differences among parents with and without disabilities in source of maltreatment source, maltreatment substantiation, maltreatment type, additional risk factors (e.g. inadequate housing, financial problems, and partner violence), child welfare services received, and case outcomes. In addition, differences between parents labeled with different disability categories were explored. Analyses were controlled for child disability status, child race, and child gender.

Results: Overall, parents with disabilities had 1.68 times greater odds to have a maltreatment substantiation than parents without disabilities, controlling for child race, child gender and child disability status. Specific parental disability categories that showed the highest odds of maltreatment substantiation were emotional disturbance, learning disabilities and physical disabilities (2, 2.5 and 2.4 times higher odds respectively). Differences in the sources of the initial report of alleged maltreatment were also found, with parents with intellectual disabilities having 3 times higher odds to be reported by social service and medical personnel than parents without an intellectual disability. Additionally, parents with intellectual disabilities also had higher odds of additional family risk factors as compared to parents without intellectual disabilities, including inadequate housing (O.R=4.8), financial problems (O.R.=3.5), and public assistance receipt (O.R.=2.4).

Conclusions and Implications: These findings clearly show disparities in child welfare in cases involving parent with disabilities, particularly in reporting source, rates of substantiation, and additional risk factors. The child welfare system must address this equity issue by ensuring that they provide appropriately modified services to parents with disabilities to ensure their equal treatment. Further, more research is needed to explain these significant disparities, as currently the causes of the disparities are unclear.