Differential Response and Data

1
Differential Response and Data

• American Humane 2007 Conference on Differential
  Response in Child Welfare
• Patricia Schene, Ph.D.

2
Data Issues raised by Differential Response
Implementation

• How to count abused/neglected children when
  substantiation decision not documented
• Documenting facts of case even when not
  focusing on investigation
• Tracking progress and outcomes when case is not
  officially open to child welfare but served in
  community
• Revisiting what data is important to collect

3
Outline of Presentation

• Purposes of gathering data on child maltreatment
• How national data is currently collected,
  analyzed, and utilized
• Definitions of recurrence, re-victimization,
  re-entry, rates of confirmation
• What are the important facts to document and
  track related to child maltreatment?

4
Purposes of Data on Child Maltreatment

• Understand magnitude of the problem analyze
  rates of CAN across jurisdictions and across time
• Identify/track perpetrators to protect children
• Commonality of meaning required across
  jurisdictions within and among states
• Utilize the data to improve CW practice

5
Purposes of data collection.

• Understand the impact of our interventions
• Understand the demographics of the problem of
  child maltreatment -- age vulnerabilities, types
  of maltreatment, race, gender, relationships to
  perpetrators, etc.
• Ascertain connections of CW with other social
  problems and develop needed resources

6
Current National Data Collection

• Enormous efforts have been undertaken to have
  national data follow common definitional
  categories- NCANDS
• NCANDS can count number of reports, number of
  victims (children on substantiated or indicated
  reports), types of maltreatment, severity,court
  involvement, services provided, demographics,
  relationships of children to alleged
  perpetratorsetc.

7
National Data Collection...

• NCANDS is vitally important to give us the
  national analysis of child maltreatment
• This data helps support national and state level
  policies to address CAN, resources for the
  children and families involved, and some
  direction as to needed services
• With the advent of Differential Response, some
  systemic issues arise

8
National Data Collection

• With the implementation of DR, normally there is
  no documentation of the findings of the
  investigation, ( thesubstantiation decision)
  for all the reports on the alternative response
  track.
• This means there is no record of victimization
  and therefore no ability to include these
  reports when counting victims or even
  recurrence/recidivism as opposed to simply
  re-reporting

9
National Data Collection...

• 30 rate of confirmed maltreatment in national
  data understates problem of CAN
• Another major issue presented by DR is that the
  cases on the alternative response track are
  often served in the community and sometimes not
  opened to CPS. This presents challenges to data
  systems trying to track services provided,
  progress toward outcomes, as well as continued or
  repeated maltreatment and patterns of harm

10
Data Issues highlighted by DR

• We have long realized that the criteria for
  substantiation is much more complex than did it
  happen and that jurisdictions vary over time and
  among each other as to what is labeled a
  substantiated report
• The substantiation rate has decreased over time
  independent of DR -- issues such as higher
  criteria of severity, limitations of resources,
  etc. play a role

11
Data Issues...

• The three National Incidence Studies indicate
  that many more children are known by
  professionals to be abused/neglected than are
  reported or screened in for response -- therefore
  we cannot depend on official reporting data to
  give us the full picture or full count of
  abused/neglected children

12
Data Issues...

• We also know empirically that many
  children/families -- reported to CPS or not --
  are served in their communities in ways that
  address parenting issues. These have never been
  fully accounted for in understanding the impact
  of services on CAN
• Of course, many children and families are not
  served whether reported or not

13
Discussion What data should be collected?

• Even before DR, our data had limitations, but
  within those limitations having a national data
  set on CAN has been very useful
• How can we use example of DR and the data issues
  highlighted to determine what we could collect if
  DR continues to spread and more than half the
  reports are on tracks alternative to investigation

14
Ideas --What data should be collected?

• Number of reports number of children
  re-reported, responses/interventions as a result
  of all prior reports
• Documentation of what actually happened to child
  even if case is not substantiated, and we are
  not assigning responsibility
• Willingness of parent to participate in services
  commitment over time

15
What data should be collected?

• Need for court involvement
• Commitment/involvement of larger family system
• Continued concern of the community -
  re-contacting reporters/others
• Presence of services that respond to assessed
  needs parental involvement in services
• Family progress towards outcomes