Surveillance Data: Foundations for Interventions

The Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (CIS) research team is very pleased to include four papers in this inaugural issue of the International Journal of Child and Adolescent Resilience. Services provided to children, youth, and families from Child Protective Services or child welfare systems can range to address adult vulnerabilities (mental health problems, substance abuse), child needs for learning, health, and well-being needs, and context needs (housing supports). Ongoing service provision is one potential resilience vehicle via promoting child safety, family stability, and child permanency, when removed from family care. Each of the papers examines the decision to provide child welfare services at the conclusion of a maltreatment investigation. The four CIS analyses reveal important differences in the service decisions to four distinct populations identified by the CIS: (1) caregivers who are non-English/non- French speaking; (2) infants; (3) youth with delinquency behaviours and/or involved in the youth criminal justice system; and, (4) children who have been exposed to intimate partner violence. The findings from the CIS highlight the importance of surveillance data as a type of research evidence that can be utilized to inform important policy and practice initiatives. The lives of the children, youth, and families documented in the CIS studies are complex, and it is the responsibility of researchers to document and understand these complexities so as to support children and families in a timely, effective and ethical manner

Treating youth agression and related problems in a social services agency

Chapter 14Family TIES (training in essential skills) is a multilevel treatment program for helping youth with anger, aggression, and interconnected problems. It is embedded within a social service centre that provides child protective and youth offender services. In this article we summarize the program’s origin and theoretical foundation, and discuss the results of a preliminary investigation. Based on the premise that youth problems emerge largely from family discord, the program involves (a) teaching prosocial and anger management skills to youth, (b) training parents to become supportive coaches for their children, and (c) enacting effective family problem solving within the context of multi-family group sessions. The intention is to replace negative family processes with constructive communication between family members, positive expectations about one another, and shared beliefs in the family’s capacity to arrive at mutually agreeable solutions to problems. As part of an internal investigation of the program, youth-report and parent-report measures of youth behaviour, youth social skills, youth and parent anger, parenting, and family functioning were administered prior to and after delivery of the program. Positive changes were found in principal measures of interest, i.e., reductions in youth aggression, rule breaking, and anger; improved parental monitoring; and fewer family functioning problems. The results provide justification for evaluating Family TIES using an experimental design

Provincial Comparisons in the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect - 2008: Context for Variation in Findings

Objectives: This paper compares findings of five provincial incidence studies (British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec) in order to investigate and explain variations in provincial findings with the hope of promoting future provincial comparisons. Methods: The provincial incidence study reports were produced as part of the larger CIS- 2008. The CIS-2008 is a third national study that captured information about children and their families reported for maltreatment by child protection services. Results: The findings compared rates per 1, 000 children. Some dimensions measured such as rates of substantiation and transfers to ongoing services and placement were similar across the provinces studied. Others, such as rates of maltreatment-related investigations, the classification of risk investigations, rates of substantiated neglect, emotional maltreatment and intimate partner violence differed more between the five provinces. Conclusions: Socio-demographic differences, differences in screening and investigation procedures, clinical case practice differences and methodological differences were presented as possible sources of variation in the data across provinces. The results, however, are not evaluative as they do not present data that examine outcomes for children and their families. Implications: While comparisons between provinces can now be made, further research on the impact of the differences in services to children and their families and the outcome of these services is still needed distinguishable from emotional resilience and dispositional traits. Empirical research on the nature of interpersonal resilience in challenged contexts is warranted. InterventionSocial Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Aid to Research Workshops and Conferences Grant, The Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect, 2008: Provincial / First Nations Research Network Workshop, File number 646- 2011-0130, Council Identification Number 12630

A Profile of Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence Investigations in the Canadian Child Welfare System: An Examination Using the 2008 Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (CIS-2008)

Objectives: To provide a profile of the incidence and characteristics of substantiated exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) investigations in Canada in 2008. Methods: Bivariate analyses were conducted examining four types of substantiated investigations in order to better understand the response of the child welfare system to IPV investigations: (i) investigations in which exposure to IPV was the single substantiated form of maltreatment; (ii) investigations in which another type of maltreatment (physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect, or emotional maltreatment) was the single substantiated form of maltreatment; (iii) investigations in which exposure to IPV co-occurred with at least one other form of maltreatment; (iv) investigations in which there were co-occurring forms of maltreatment that did not include IPV. Results: 41% of substantiated investigations involved exposure to IPV, with 31% of investigations involving single form IPV and 10% of investigations involving IPV that co-occurred with another form of maltreatment. A total of 51% of investigations were substantiated for a single form of other maltreatment (physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect or emotional maltreatment) and 8% of investigations were substantiated for cooccurring forms of these four types of maltreatment. The investigations were compared on family, child, case, and service characteristics. Conclusions and Implications: Exposure to IPV is a complex issue and demands an equally complex response that includes cross sector collaboration. Child welfare agencies receiving referrals regarding intimate partner violence should aim to identify opportunities to prevent recurrence and support the victims identified in the investigation

Non-English/non-French Speaking Caregivers Involved with the Canadian Child Welfare System: Findings from the Canadian Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (CIS-2008)

Objective: The objective is to provide a profile of non-English/non-French speaking families investigated by child welfare, with primary caregiver language acting as a proxy for immigration. This analysis examines the impact of language on service disposition. Methods: Multivariate analysis was conducted to determine whether primary caregiver language impacts the decision to transfer a case to ongoing services at the conclusion of the investigation, after controlling for clinical factors. Results: Investigations involving non-English/non-French speaking caregivers were more likely to identify physical abuse as the primary maltreatment form, more likely to indicate the caregiver has few social supports and is a victim of domestic violence, and more likely to report no primary source of income than investigations involving non-immigrant caregivers. When controlling for clinical factors, investigations involving these caregivers were significantly less likely to be transferred to ongoing services. However, when controlling for language and clinical factors, investigations of physical abuse were significantly less likely to be opened for ongoing services than investigations of all other maltreatment types. Conclusions and Implications: The findings suggest that there is an interaction between primary caregiver language and maltreatment type in predicting transfers to ongoing services. Given the lower risk profiles of non-English/non-French speaking families, although concerns of social isolation and domestic violence were more likely to be noted, a possible explanation is that these families are overrepresented in investigations of physical abuse. The potential utility of parenting education programs tailored immigrant families as one avenue to address the problem of abusive discipline, merits research attention

Examining the Impact of Policy and Legislation on the Identification of Neglect in Ontario: Trends Over-Time

Objectives: Reported neglect investigations were compared across a 20-year time frame using data from the five cycles of the Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect (OIS-1993 to 2013) in order to discuss the impact of significant policy changes on the Ontario child welfare system’s response to child neglect. Methods: Each OIS cycle used a multi-stage sampling design. A representative sample was selected from all mandated child welfare organizations. Cases were selected over a three-month period and then weighted to produce provincial estimates. The information was collected directly from child welfare workers at the conclusion of the investigation using a three-page data collection instrument. Results: Changes in rates of reported neglect vary by form but overall there has been a significant increase in reported neglect in Ontario since 1993. There was a decline in investigations involving permitting criminal behaviour, which was the most investigated form of neglect in 1993 and least investigated in 2013. Physical and medical neglect increased dramatically between 1998 and 2003. Transfers to ongoing services for neglect investigations remained relatively stable despite the doubling of neglect investigations. Conclusion and Implications: Transfer to ongoing services did not increase consistently with the investigation rate. This could be reflecting a significant resource gap, whereby the number of children and families receiving ongoing child welfare services is determined by capacity rather than need or it could mean that referral processes are mistakenly identifying situations that do not need child welfare services. Further analysis is required to understand these trends.The Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council funds the first author’s Canada Research Chair in Child Welfare (SSHRC #499489 )