Child Maltreatment and Parental Well-Being Outcomes in an Experimental Economic Support Intervention

Background and purpose: Project GAIN (“Getting Access to Income Now”) was a five-year, experimentally tested intervention in Milwaukee County, designed to test the question of whether economic supports can prevent child maltreatment.  In the final year of the intervention (2016), all families reported to and investigated by CPS in Milwaukee County, but who did not receive ongoing CPS intervention as a result of an investigation, were administered a baseline and one-year follow-up survey, in which answers to sensitive questions were collected via a computer-assisted personal interviewing protocol.  After the baseline survey, families were randomized into a treatment condition (the offer of Project GAIN) or control condition (no services).  The present analysis reports initial program findings related to child maltreatment and parental well-being outcomes in the year following randomization.

Methods:  Altogether, 727 families participated in a baseline survey and were subsequentlyrandomizedinto the study; 369 (51%)were assigned to the treatment group and 358 (49%) were assigned to the control group.  A second survey was administered approximately 12-months after each family’s baseline survey.  In addition, administrative data on CPS involvement in the year subsequent to randomization were collected.  In the survey, parents were asked questions about neglect, physical abuse, and verbal abuse behaviors. These items were summarized into one dichotomous variable indicating any self-reported abuse or neglect in the year following randomization. Other indicators of parental well-being were measured at follow-up, including depression, parenting distress, alcohol or drug abuse, intimate partner violence, and economic stress. Baseline controls included measures for race and ethnicity, respondent age, number of children, age of youngest child, marital/cohabiting status, education level, and current employment status.  Intent-to-treat analyses involved comparing treatment and control groups on post-randomization indicators of child maltreatment, controlling for baseline socio-demographic characteristics. 

Results:  CPS involvement and parental alcohol and drug abuse were less frequently identified in the treatment group compared to the control group at the one-year follow-up, although these differences were not statistically significant.  Parenting distress and economic stress were higher in the treatment group, with the latter approaching statistical significance (p < .10). There were no differences between the treatment and control groups in self-reported abuse and neglect behaviors, or intimate partner violence.

Conclusions and implications:  Although the survey cohort of the Project GAIN evaluation lacked sufficient statistical power for drawing definitive conclusions, results from this analysis suggest that a short-term, light touch economic support intervention does not appear to produce clear and consistent evidence of improved child and parent well-being.  In some cases, it appears that the intervention may have created additional hardship for families.  Potential mechanisms explaining these findings are considered and discussed. 

Conclusions and implications:  Although the survey cohort of the Project GAIN evaluation lacked sufficient statistical power for drawing definitive conclusions, results from this analysis suggest that a short-term, light touch economic support intervention does not appear to produce clear and consistent evidence of improved child and parent well-being.  In some cases, it appears that the intervention may have created additional hardship for families.  Potential mechanisms explaining these findings are considered and discussed.