This article is about the problems lawmakers are having with CPS transparency and obtaining the statistical information they need for better decision making.
This is the first of 2 articles on this topic.
- Many if not most cases of child abuse and neglect go unreported or undetected. Child abuse is invisible. It is seldom seen outside of the home unless it is severe and obvious. Children lie about why the bruise, cut or broken bone (it’s embarrassing and a painful memory). Official statistics can only underestimate the true prevalence of abuse. It’s estimated that only about 1 in 3 cases of child abuse are actually reported to authorities.
- States differ considerably in how they define child abuse, investigate cases, and determine which cases to substantiate.
- This variability makes it difficult to compare statistics across states or combine data from different sources
- Events like the COVID-19 pandemic can affect reporting rates without necessarily reflecting changes in actual child abuse rates.
- Policy changes at the state and county level impact how many cases are investigated or substantiated
- Child welfare records rarely include egregious incidents and lack important contextual information about family risk factors, parenting practices, and sociodemographic details.
- There is little transparency in CPS (Child Protective Services). Reporters and researchers find little cooperation and administrative datasets difficult to understand. 1. Counties and States have free rein in how data is kept often using old and complex software that are not user friendly at best and difficult for the agency accessing, linking, and analyzing administrative datasets.
- CPS will argue that the HIPPA Laws forbid information sharing. No, they do not. They forbid sharing that information identifying people. We need the overall data concerning the children involved in the system. Metrics on child outcomes.
- Most statistics focus only on substantiated cases of maltreatment. Very little useful CPS data includes meaningful data about the children being served.
- Unsubstantiated reports are often predictive of future abuse. Counties will be better prepared to deal with the ebbs and flows of child abuse reports when it has information that is predictive. CPS is a reactive and overwhelmed institution at the whims of County budgets and politics of the day. If it kept better data, it could make better arguments for why programs and policies are needed. Especially in the area of cost savings as long-term families in CPS are very costly in dollars and impact of schools, health care, and crime.
- A huge bugaboo is the destruction of records by counties. KARA argues that without longitudinal information about the children and families passing through the system, we can never know how an agency is performing over time, the histories of generational child abuse in a county, or the significant metrics if they are not recorded, tracked and kept. Many states destroy records after two or three years. This gives no context to the problems or trends CPS is dealing with or the costs involved by not getting positive results. Differences between federal and state and county data make comparisons difficult and longitudinal studies almost nonexistent. KARA posits how self-serving and ridiculous it is to allow CPS to destroy records at all. It guarantees operating from a day-to-day perspective and no pragmatic, supportable strategy based on history and projection.
- Federal datasets often lack identifying information needed for program evaluation, while state-by-state data can be difficult to compile and compare. Program and policy evaluation are a significant and long running problem. There is much to unpack here, lack of resources and time constraints often keep low performing programs and policies around for decades.
- Neglect is the most common form of maltreatment but can be difficult to define and measure.
- There is often a significant delay between when data is collected and when it becomes available for analysis, making it challenging to assess current trends.
Understanding data is crucial for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners working to address child maltreatment. It highlights the need for CPS transparency, careful interpretation of statistics and the importance of using multiple data sources and methods to gain a comprehensive understanding of child abuse and neglect in the United States.
Finally, there are many competing studies and statistics in this field but little question that most data compiled today in most states fail to track critical child outcomes. There needs to be more transparency measuring the important child outcome metrics and consistent evaluations and reporting of this data if we are to reverse the trends that have been building over the last few decades.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4699440/
https://www.cdc.gov/child-abuse-neglect/about/index.html
https://www.nationalchildrensalliance.org/media-room/national-statistics-on-child-abuse/
https://www.aecf.org/blog/child-maltreatment-trends
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8205446/
https://www.recordnations.com/articles/record-retention-guidelines-by-state/
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This article submitted by former CASA volunteer guardian ad litem Mike Tikkanen
KARA/KIDS AT RISK ACTION / INVISIBLE CHILDREN
#statistics,#childabuse,#transparency,#counties,#states,#kara,#reporting#decisionmaking
