Comparing the Recurrence of Substantiated Maltreatment Reports Among Parents with Limited Income with and without Disabilities

Background

There has been a growing concern about the over-representation of parents with disabilities in the child protection system across the world despite the lack of empirical data that they are more likely to abuse or neglect their children. The disproportionate presence of parents with disabilities in child protection services indicates that there may be biases leading to unwarranted reporting and substantiation in such proceedings. The purpose of this study is to determine disproportionality in repeated involvement with child protection services among low-income parents with disabilities to their propensity score matched samples of parents without disabilities. This study also examines factors for the risk of maltreatment substantiation shared by both parents with and without disabilities in this sample, as well as risk factors specific to each group.

Methods

Using the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN) data set, we identified 188 parents with disabilities who were eligible for Supplemental Security Income (SSI). We also conducted propensity score matching analysis with the 2-to-1 Nearest Neighbor method to identify 376 their matched sample without disabilities. For the main analyses, negative binomial regression models were employed to examine the likelihood of repeated maltreatment substantiation.

Results

While low-income parents with disabilities did have higher rates of having one report of substantiated maltreatment (50%) than their matched sample (40.7%), they did not have higher rates of repeated substantiated maltreatment reports than their matched sample (t=-1.40, p=0.162). The results from the negative binomial regression indicated that parental disability is not a significant predictor for having repeated substantiated maltreatment reports even after control variables were included (Exp(B)=1.15, p = .297). In both groups, being a parent of color, especially a Black parent, significantly decreased the number of substantiated child protection reports (Exp(B)=0.30, p<.001 for parents with disabilities and Exp(B)=0.67, p<.05 for their matched sample). In addition, having children with disabilities (Exp(B)=1.63, p<.05 for parents with disabilities and Exp(B)=1.63, p<.05 for their matched sample) and becoming a SNAP recipient (Exp(B)=2.11, p<.01 for parents with disabilities and Exp(B)=1.75, p<.05 for their matched sample) significantly increased the numbers of maltreatment substantiations. Additional risk factors included having girls (Exp(B)=1.63, p<.05) for parents with disabilities, and family instability (Exp(B)=1.33, p<.05) and child disability (Exp(B)=1.75, p<.01) for their matched sample without disabilities.

Conclusion

The longitudinal analyses of multistate data and length of time of this study allows inference on repeated involvements with the child protection services for substantiated maltreatment among parents with disabilities over time. The findings from this study indicate that there is a need for more attention from researchers, policymakers, and practitioners into the early identification of parents with disabilities and their experiences in the child protection services. Child welfare services must provide reasonable modifications to assessment and services for vulnerable parents with different needs to prevent their unnecessary involvement in the system.