Session: Child Neglect: Disentangling the Most Reported Form of Maltreatment (Society for Social Work and Research 28th Annual Conference - Recentering & Democratizing Knowledge: The Next 30 Years of Social Work Science)

Neglect is the most reported form of child maltreatment to child protection systems (CPS). Nationally in 2019, 656,243 children had an allegation of maltreatment substantiated or indicated and 77.2% (506,802) of those included substantiated neglect (US HHS, 2021). Yet, despite the high frequency of neglect, great uncertainty and debate persists regarding the etiology, nature, and appropriate response to child neglect that is reported to CPS. Key policy and practice issues remain contested, including whether neglect investigations and definitions should focus on child outcomes or parental behavior, how much neglect reflects poverty and concrete needs, and whether neglect should be handled in the same manner as abuse. For effective policies, services, and interventions to be developed to address this most commonly reported form of child maltreatment, research is needed to disentangle the risk factors, concerns, and responses to child neglect. The four papers in this symposium advance the child welfare field on child neglect by analyzing the underlying risk factors associated with neglect, the familial concerns reflected within child neglect reports, and state differences in the volume and responses to neglect reports. To understand both the commonality of childhood neglect and demonstrate the difficulties in garnering proper estimates, paper one identifies state variation in the rates of child neglect allegations and substantiations, as well as illustrates the frequency of co-occurring maltreatment allegations (concurrent sexual and physical abuse allegations). The second paper analyzes a longitudinal survey dataset to identify financial and health predictors of neglect for adolescents. The third paper uses data from a single state to identify the specific concern for the child (supervision, protection, material need), as well as the underlying parental concern (substance abuse, domestic violence, poverty) that are present in reports of neglect. Paper 4 examines how differences in allegation types (i.e., neglect versus abuse) lead to different rates of substantiation and ultimately out of home placements, from child level to neighborhood level characteristics. Together these papers add new knowledge regarding child neglect that can be used in the development of policies, prevention services, and interventions. This symposium is particularly timely given the questions regarding the proper responses by the state into family lives and the opportunities for tertiary prevention afforded by the Family First Prevention Services Act. A child welfare scholar will serve as the discussant, providing overarching comments on the four papers and facilitating a discussion with the audience about implications for policy, practice, and future research.