Positive Possibilities for Child and Family Welfare: Options for Expanding the Anglo-American Child Protection Paradigm

The creation of the ‘problem of child maltreatment’ and how we deal with it are best understood as particular discourses which grow out of specific histories and social configurations. The Anglo-American child protection paradigm can be viewed as a particular configuration rooted in our vision for children, families, community, and society. However, other settings have constructed quite different responses reflecting their own priorities and desired outcomes. This paper is an effort to understand the choices made in Ontario’s child protection system by examining its history and the underlying beliefs and values which have fostered its development. In addition, the paper is an attempt to counteract the sense of inevitability of this child protection approach. By discussing the many different ways in which other countries and settings work with, and think about, families and children, we will uncover a spectrum of positive possibilities which exist outside our current conceptions of child and family welfare systems

The relationships between state-level economic policies, child maltreatment, and suicidal behavior and mortality.

Suicide has proven to be difficult to predict and prevent at the individual level,1–3 so much so that a recent analysis of individual risk assessments found a maximal positive predictive value of 5.5% for suicide death,2 and suicide continues to be a leading cause of death among adolescents age 10-19 years.4 By targeting modifiable risk factors at the population level, policy has the potential to extend our reach to people and subgroups that are missed by individual level interventions. This ecological study of adolescent suicide rates, state policies, and child maltreatment in US states from 2005-2019 and Kentucky counties from 2010-2019, combines secondary data from multiple databases to implement a mediation analysis and investigate whether the incidence rate of child maltreatment is a mediator between state policies promoting socioeconomic stability and rates of suicidal behavior among youth. No evidence of mediation is found in this analysis to support our primary hypothesis that child maltreatment rates acted as a mediator between state policy and suicidal mortality rates at the national level, nor is there evidence of mediation when investigating access to these programs at the county-level in Kentucky. At the national level, a generous state minimum wage and an increase in TANF access are associated with decreases in adolescent suicide mortality rates. However, despite previous work implicating child maltreatment as a significant risk factor for suicide mortality, the rate of child maltreatment is not significantly associated with the adolescent suicide rate. The results of this study also indicate a significant role for a refundable state EITC in the decrease of the child maltreatment rate. Shifting the focus to a population level decrease in suicidal behavior and mortality among children and adolescents in addition to effective individual level supports may be a positive strategy toward overall population health. State governments aiming to decrease expenditures by reducing economic benefits and weakening policies that support socioeconomic stability in the population may be failing to take advantage of the upstream prevention benefits for many well-established public health risks of economic insecurity

The Community Context of Animal and Human Maltreatment: Is there a Relationship between Animal Maltreatment and Human Maltreatment: Does Neighborhood Context Matter?

The purpose of the study is to explore the influence of demographic and neighborhood factors on the phenomenon of animal maltreatment in an urban setting as well as the association of animal maltreatment with human maltreatment. Using a unique dataset of animal maltreatment from the Pennsylvania Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the distribution and prevalence of animal neglect, abuse, and dog fighting in Philadelphia were mapped with Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Statistical analysis was employed to examine the relationship between animal maltreatment and neighborhood factors, domestic violence, and child maltreatment. The low correlation between animal abuse and neighborhood factors in this study suggests that animal abuse may be better explained as an individual phenomenon than a behavior that is a function of neighborhoods. However, animal neglect does correlate with demographic, cultural, and structural aspects of block groups, suggesting social disorganization may lead to animal neglect. This study also suggests that dog fighting is a crime of opportunity, as dog fighting correlates with indicators of abandoned properties. Finally, this study is unable to demonstrate a community link between animal maltreatment and child maltreatment, which does not preclude the link among individuals. The findings suggest caution in policies and advocacy campaigns that link human and animal violence in all arenas

Child maltreatment assessment and recidivism : a study of Kentucky child protective services.

This quantitative dissertation examines risk assessment and recidivism of child maltreatment to determine the relationship between child protective services provided by the Kentucky Department of Protection and Permanency and risk of harm. A chart review of existing data on 3,235 closed Kentucky child protective services cases provides information about the quality of service provided to families, the reduction of risk of maltreatment assessed in the family, and the rate of recidivism following case closure. This dissertation examines the usefulness of the Continuous Quality Assessment tool (CQA) and its effectiveness in assessing risk. The CQA is an assessment tool that is designed to guide child protective workers in making case decisions throughout the life of the case. This dissertation on risk assessment and recurrence of maltreatment adds to the measurable outcomes of effectiveness for child protection services and enhances a public child welfare agency\u27s ability to improve service delivery to families. A modified one-group pretest posttest design was utilized to assess the dependent variables, risk of maltreatment and recurrence of maltreatment, before and after casework services were provided. Changes in risk of maltreatment were measured by the cumulative rating on the assessment tool, as well as by scores in the specific risk domains: maltreatment, sequence of events (how well the family is managing their high-risk situations), family development stages, family choice of discipline, adult patterns of behavior, child/youth development, and family support. The second dependent variable, recurrence of maltreatment, was measured by the number of reports of maltreatment investigated in the year following case closure. Findings highlight the success of solution-based casework in creating change. Variables found to be significantly related to reduction in risk include (a)the length of time a case was open for the current treatment episode, (b)region of service, (c)supervisor gender, (d)CQA individual risk domains, and (e)expertise of worker. Variables found to be significantly related to recurrence of maltreatment include (a)CQA safety rating and individual risk domains, (b)worker\u27s level of skill, (c)type of abuse, (d)number of substantiated referrals in case at closure, (e)a prior episode of treatment, and (f)geographic region of service

The Most Dangerous Branch of Science? Reining in Rogue Research and Reckless Experimentation in Social Services

Most people are unaware how much public policy is either lacking in any empirical-research support or driven by bad research. Political actors motivated by ideology or donor/constituent demands propose new government practices—in areas ranging from policing to funding of treatments for gender dysphoria in youth to welfare-qualification rules—that will greatly impact people’s lives, and if anyone asks what basis they have for thinking the impact will be good, they can readily find some study to support their case. Especially when powerless populations are put at risk, neither the legislative process nor peer review in the publication process provides a real check on reckless experimentation and incompetent or corrupt research

The Most Dangerous Branch of Science? Reining in Rogue Research and Reckless Experimentation in Social Services

Most people are unaware how much public policy is either lacking in any empirical-research support or driven by bad research. Political actors motivated by ideology or donor/constituent demands propose new government practices—in areas ranging from policing to funding of treatments for gender dysphoria in youth to welfare-qualification rules—that will greatly impact people’s lives, and if anyone asks what basis they have for thinking the impact will be good, they can readily find some study to support their case. Especially when powerless populations are put at risk, neither the legislative process nor peer review in the publication process provides a real check on reckless experimentation and incompetent or corrupt research. This Article argues that, at least with respect to social services for vulnerable populations, innovation and scientific study should be subject to constraints analogous to those for introduction of new drugs and vaccinations. These include pre-implementation assessment of evidentiary basis by panels of independent experts, piloting, and assurance of scientific rigor as well as protections for human “subjects”—a concept that, even in medicine, should be expanded, to include anyone substantially impacted by an experimental intervention and not just those whom researchers choose to study. In addition, agencies and research institutions must become more circumspect about who provides proxy consent for non-autonomous subjects. As illustration of the problem and how the solutions might be implemented, the Article focuses on the repeated innovations over the past forty years in state response to child maltreatment, a pattern sure to continue indefinitely unless discipline is imposed. A voiceless population with no reliable surrogates, too often treated as distributable goods rather than persons, children in the child protection system present the perfect storm of conditions conducing to unethical behavior among policy makers and social scientists. In this realm, “fake news” destroys lives

Reintegration Strategies To Mitigate Child Abuse And Neglect By Substance Abusers In West Virginia Communities

This thesis evaluates the effectiveness of current intervention strategies employed by organizations that provide socially necessary services (SNS) to Kanawha County, West Virginia parents whose drug addictions led to substantiated allegations of child abuse and neglect. These organizations, known as administrative service organizations (ASO), are referred to these maltreating parents by Child Protective Services (CPS) to control or mitigate impending dangers to the safety of abused/neglected children posed by maltreating parents with drug addictions. The current modus operandi of the state of West Virginia is to facilitate an intervention, provide treatment and reunify the family. However, there is an omitted and crucial piece to the sustainability of the family unit once they are released from the supervision of the state, which is in the form of a community reintegration strategy that will support the family’s success as a functioning social unit upon release from the child welfare system. This thesis intends to show that without this integral piece of the circle, the cycle of drug abuse cannot be broken therefore fails at the sustainability of the sobriety of the maltreating parent as well as the family as a functioning unit

Attributions and discipline history as predictors of child abuse potential and future discipline practices

Objectives: We attempted to identify factors that can be applied in primary and secondary prevention programs and expand the understanding of why those who were not abused may engage in abusive behavior. The purpose of this research was to explore how young adults’ attributions of whether they deserved their childhood discipline, as well as their abuse history, relate to physical child abuse potential and their discipline plans for their future children. Method: A sample of 140 non-parent college students were asked to report on their discipline history, perceptions of that discipline, child abuse potential, and expected discipline practices. An age range of 18–20 was targeted for multiple reasons, including the suitability of these young adults for primary and secondary prevention programs. Results: Analyses revealed that both physical child abuse potential and future discipline practices were independently predicted by respondents’ belief that they deserved their discipline in conjunction with the harshness of their childhood discipline. Discussion: These results suggest that the attributions of self-blame held by young adults about their discipline experiences are significant for increasing physical abuse potential regardless of whether the individual reports a history of abuse

Measuring and monitoring national prevalence of child maltreatment: A practical handbook

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