Child Maltreatment Among Children in out-of-Home Care: Secondary Analysis of Ncands and Afcars Data

Background and Purpose. Children are placed in out-of-home care (OOHC) to protect them from further harm, yet child maltreatment does occur in OOHC settings. Maltreatment in OOHC is an understudied topic; little research has been conducted over the past 30 years. This study addresses this gap by focusing on children in OOHC and examining the incidence of both substantiated and unsubstantiated maltreatment; the nature of reported maltreatment (neglect, physical abuse, sexual abuse, or emotional maltreatment); the characteristics of maltreatment victims; and the sources of maltreatment reports.

Methods. We linked data from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS) for reporting years 2014 to 2020 to data from the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) for reporting years 2014 to 2019. For each reporting year, we used NCANDS data to identify children living with non-parent caregivers (relative and non-relative) or in group homes or residential treatment settings at the time of the alleged maltreatment. We limited our sample to children in 12 states missing child living arrangement data for < 5% of cases for all six years. Then we used report date in the AFCARS data as a proxy for incident date and only included cases if the report date overlapped with the child’s out-of-home spell.

Results. About 7% of children in OOHC were reported for alleged maltreatment each year; less than 1% were determined to be victims. Substantiation rates for children in OOHC were consistently lower than for children not in care, but the differences were fairly small. Children in OOHC were less likely to experience neglect or emotional maltreatment and more likely to experience physical or sexual abuse than children not in OOHC. Among children in OOHC who experienced maltreatment, children under age 2 were under-represented and children of color and children with disabilities were over-represented. Social services accounted for the largest share of child maltreatment reports for children in OOHC, while education and law enforcement accounted for the largest share of child maltreatment reports for children not in care.

Conclusions and Implications. This study addresses key gaps in our knowledge about maltreatment among children in OOHC. Although investigations of maltreatment among children in OOHC were uncommon, we find a number of differences between children who experience maltreatment while in OOHC and (1) other children who experience maltreatment and (2) other children in OOHC. These differences suggest that our understanding of child maltreatment in general does not necessarily apply to children in OOHC and that some children in OOHC may be at greater risk for experiencing maltreatment than others. Our findings can inform strategies to strengthen national surveillance of child maltreatment and provide child welfare systems with information they can use to prevent further harm to children who have already been maltreated. Limitations related to the NCANDS and AFCARS databases and implications for future research will be discussed.