Child Maltreatment Report Outcomes: Do Reports from Mandated and Permissive Reporters Differ?

Background and Purpose:  Child maltreatment is a significant societal problem.  Over a third of children in the United States will be the subject of a child maltreatment investigation in their lifetimes. Mandated reporting laws have existed in all 50 states since 1969 and constitute a core policy response to maltreatment. Prior studies have attempted to understand if reports from mandated and permissive sources are similar or different in nature and outcomes.  Most of this work has focused on a single outcome variable - substantiation. It has been consistently found that reports form mandated sources are more likely to be substantiated. Recent work, however, has also suggested that substantiation might not be as useful an outcome measure as previously believed, bearing little relationship to subsequent risk. The current study, therefore, will introduce an expanded set of outcome measures allowing us to evaluate differences between reports from mandated and permissive sources both at the initial (index) report and over time. Our research questions are  “Do reports from mandated and permissive sources have (1) different outcomes at the index report (substantiation and foster care entry) and (2) different trajectories beyond the index report (re-report, substantiated re-report and later foster care entry)”.

Methods: Primary analysis utilized a detailed cross-sector, longitudinal dataset collected in a midwestern metropolitan area from 1993 to 2009 (N=7,302). We followed children with index reports from mandated and permissive sources and tracked initial case disposition (substantiation, entry into care), as well as later recurrence events (any report, any substantiated report, subsequent entry into care). Bivariate analysis and logistic regressions using a range of control variables were performed.  A separate set of similar analyses using the much larger but less detailed data available from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) Child Files and the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) was conducted.

Results:  Both datasets yielded similar results. Consistent with prior literature, mandated reporters were much more likely to have their reports substantiated.  Index reports from mandated sources were also much more likely to transition to foster care. In stark contrast, we found that index event reporter status (mandated/permissive) did not predict report recurrence or later foster care entry. Results were consistent at the bivariate and multivariate levels.

Conclusion and Implications: We confirm the longstanding finding that reports from mandated sources have higher initial substantiation rates.  However, while cases from mandated and permissive reporters clearly differ in immediate outcomes, they are not very different in longer term outcomes. A primary goal of the child protective services system is providing preventative interventions to forestall subsequent maltreatment. Since we find children reported by either type of reporter to be at similar long term risk, we would advise that screening protocols should not prioritize reports from professional sources.